I do not think our separation [with Anti-Chalcedonians] is due only to historical misunderstandings about the terms physis, hypostasis, ousia, prosopon, etc. These terms have taken a definite sense in the effort of the whole undivided Church to voice the one truth of the revelation of God. They used the Greek language. Well, Greek is the language of the New Testament. Everything in early Christianity is Greek. We are all Greeks in our thinking as Christians. This is not meant in a narrow nationalistic sense, but as part of our common spiritual and intellectual background. The Fathers worked out an interpretation from which we simply cannot escape. They had to clothe the event of revelation in understandable language and categories. The difficulty was there right from the beginning, to understand fully these categories and interpret them fully in the realm of soteriology and anthropology. The special difficulty was really to interpret “hypostasis” in regard to the union of the two natures. Chalcedon emphasized the atreptos [without change]. This implies that in One hypostasis of the Incarnate Logos humanity was present in its absolute completeness — teleios anthropos, although it was the proper humanity of the Logos. The term physis is used in the Chalcedonian definition precisely for the purpose to emphasize this “completeness”. In fact, atreptos and teleiosanthropos belong indivisibly together. (Aug. 12th, 1964 Discussion on the Paper “Chalcedonians and Monophysites After Chalcedon” by The Rev. Professor J. Meyendorff. Morning Session)

Jaroslav Pelikan 1923-2006

Even more than the christological controversies before Chalcedon the continuing debate after Chalcedon was shaped by non-theological factors, ranging from mob rule and athletic rivalry to military promotions and the domestic intrigues of the imperial household… Nevertheless, the religious, liturgical, and dogmatic import of the debate must not be minimized because of any of this. For the post-Chalcedonian conflicts made it clear that as the settlement of the dogma of the Trinity at Nicea and Constantinople had reopened the christological question, so the settlement of the dogma of the two natures in Christ at Ephesus and Chalcedon reopened the trinitarian question, as well as the other fundamental presupposition of christological doctrine, the question of soteriology. The controversy had come full circle. (The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 100-600, p. 266-267)

Although the reasons for this continuing schism over the dogma of the Person of Christ lie in large measure outside the history of doctrine, it would be sheer reductionism to suppose, as many modern interpreters have, that there were no genuine doctrinal issues at stake. (The Spirit of Eastern Christendom 600-1700, p. 37-38)

Fr. John McGuckin

[T]he Christological difficulties between the separated Orthodox communions do not thereby disappear by lexicological magic, as if they never existed outside the realm of semantic confusion and misunderstanding…

Is this double speak to be at once Miaphysite and Dyophysite? Not for those who understand the patristic semantics; because in the first phrase physis means more or less what hypostasis came to mean, and still means now. And in the second affirmation, in the Chalcedonian dyophysite language, physis means no more than a set of natural attributes deductible from observation, but certainly no longer the archaic sense of ‘concrete instantiation’. Thus we affirm in the Miaphysite phrase that the Incarnate Lord is a single hypostasis-as-physis. And in the Chalcedonian dyophysite language we affirm that the Single Lord unites two perfectly intact natures (Godhead and Humanity) which are irrefragably and mysteriously made One in the unificative energy of his own single person (hypostasis, prosopon – even physis – but only as the latter term was understood in the time of the earlier Fathers, as a synonym of hypostasis). Therefore it is by no means incompatible with Orthodoxy, rather necessary for a fuller confession of the faith, to assert the correctness of both the Cyrilline Miaphysite formula and the Chalcedonian definition: Mia physis and dyo-physeis. But here we have to understand the patristic semantics properly and keep the two key issues to the fore: first that physis in the Miaphysite confession means ‘person’; secondly that the Chalcedonian dyophysite statement does not mean two natures abiding after the henosis in an unchanging static parallelism, but rather as inseparably united in the divine force of the unity of Christ’s person.

So, is the long and large falling out between the Byzantine and Oriental Orthodox all about this simple misunderstanding of how ancient words can carry different meanings and shift in nuances over the years? Yes, partly. But something else is also at stake; and, for me at least, it still carries on today in similar, less radical, ways to the root causes of the ancient debate. (St. Cyril of Alexandria’s Miaphysite Christology and Chalcedonian Dyophysitism)

The following Fr. John McGuckin paper is a must-read for those interested in the ongoing dialogue between the Orthodox and the Anti-Chalcedonian Miaphysites. Fr. John is an expert on St. Cyril’s theology and all are encouraged to read, and re-read his magnificent “St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy: Its History, Theology, and Texts”; nevertheless, there are also some objectionable ecclesiological misstatements within the paper. Fr. John utilizes terminology like “separated brethren” typical of those who have embraced an errant form of ecumenism. This is the terminology of Vat II, therefore, he seems to imply that the Anti-Chalcedonians are to be numbered among the Orthodox. The Word says, “My dove, my undefiled is one; She is the only one of her mother” (Songs 6:9); consequently, “theosis has no sister”. There has never been any local Orthodox Church that has been repeatedly anathematized by the others in successive Ecumenical Synods and eucharistic ecclesiology cannot be stretched so far. The Anti-Chalcedonians have been cut off from the Church according to Orthodox dogmatic sources and the Saints. Likewise, the Orthodox and Council of Chalcedon have been anathematized by their dogmatic authorities. (refer to Christology and the Council of Chalcedon by Fr. Shenouda Ishak, Parts 5 & 6)

We long and pray for the day when we can unite with the Anti-Chalcedonians, and everyone else who has rejected Orthodox doctrine, however, this union can only occur via the path of repentance, rejection of error, embracing the Truth and adhering to the Orthodox dogmas set forth in the Ecumenical Synods and other sources of Orthodox Tradition. St. John of Kronstadt: “Unite in this faith all the great Christian societies, woefully having fallen aside from the unity of the Holy Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is Your Body and whose Head art Thou and the Savior of the Body… grant unto their hearts to know the truth and salvific nature of Thy Church and to unite with it; link to Thy holy Church also those who are suffering from ignorance, delusion, and the stubbornness of schism… Draw all nations populating the earth to this faith, that they may all glorify Thee, the only God of all, with one heart and one mouth.” (Kizenko, ‘A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People’, p. 54)

The critically important phrase which St. Cyril of Alexandria uses in his early Christological doctrine, Mia physis tou theou logou sesarkomene (One enfleshed nature (physis) of God the Word), is one that the Non-Chalcedonian (Oriental) Orthodox Churches return to with great insistence, as part of their historic position that Chalcedon 451 departed from Cyril’s authentically patristic theology of the Incarnate Union (of God and Man) in Christ’s own divine Person. It is therefore of the utmost importance in the ongoing discussion of the separated Orthodox traditions that this Cyrilline Miaphysite teaching should be understood (by all parties), for it is something that is the common faith of both the Byzantine and the Oriental Orthodox traditions. It is the thesis of this paper that the Byzantine Orthodox Tradition, offering as its confession of Christological faith a synthesis of the synodical teachings from Ephesus 431 to Chalcedon 451 and Constantinople 553 (the three can never be separated in the confession of the Byzantine Orthodox, since all are regarded as the authentic exegesis of the others) is that the Miaphysite doctrine of St. Cyril is as correct as the Dyophysite doctrine of Chalcedon. That this is not a hopelessly illogical stance is explained on the basis that the term physis is being used by Cyril in an archaic sense, as equivalent to the term hypostasis at Chalcedon later; and so the Mia physis can coexist as an important (and common element of universal Christian Orthodoxy) along with the dyo physeis, without being logically contradictory. The implications of this will be further argued to the effect that Cyrilline Miaphysites are not necessarily Monophysites (who have largely existed between the covers of heresiology books) no more than Chalcedonian Dyophysites must be either Nestorians or deniers of the wondrous effects of the Christological Union (henosis). However, the article also states as its thesis that the Christological difficulties between the separated Orthodox communions do not thereby disappear by lexicological magic, as if they never existed outside the realm of semantic confusion and misunderstanding. On the contrary, the discussion will address the charge of the Oriental Orthodox that the continuing insistence on two natures after the Christological Union means that Chalcedonians do not really take on board the implications that what the Word has made one in Himself (the two natures of Godhead and Humanity) cannot legitimately be spoken of, after the Union, as two.

The investigation of this ancient patristic phrase of the Mia Physis is thus more than an exercise in historical theology. It has direct and important implications for the communion of the Orthodox churches in fundamental ways today, as separated brothers and sisters begin to hear one another more clearly, and study the foundational texts more seriously than for many centuries past. What is at stake is a common search for a central value for all Orthodox, namely the true exegesis of what is the phronema patrum or patristic mindset and how this is manifested in synodical statements that are believed to be Oecumenical (that is of the whole Christian Oikoumene) precisely because these Synods themselves represent this essential phronema most purely.

As God, He was the motivating principle of His own humanity, and as man He was the revelatory principle of His own divinity. One could say then, that He experienced suffering in a divine way, since it was voluntary (and He was not mere man); and that He worked miracles in a human way, since they were accomplished through the flesh (for He was not naked God). Therefore His sufferings are wondrous, for they have been renewed by the natural divine power of the One Who suffered. So too are His wonders wedded to passibility, for they were completed by the naturally passible power of the flesh of the One Who worked them. (Ambiguum 5, 18)

For even though He was God, yet He fulfilled obedience in the flesh and according to the flesh and prevailed over the will of the flesh by the will of the Godhead, as He had said beforehand, ‘I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of the Father Who sent Me, calling that of the flesh His own will, since the flesh had become His own.

It was necessary for the will of the flesh to be moved and yet subjected to the divine will, and so human disobedience is forgiven as a result of this extraordinary obedience, that of Christ for our sake. (Sermon on ‘Now My soul is troubled’ preserved in full in the Acts of Constantinople III, ACO II/2, 658-62, p. 660,10-17)

[H]e felt dread as a man and was troubled as a man. It was not the Power that was troubled, it was not the Godhead that was troubled: He was troubled in His own soul, He was troubled in the nature of human weakness; for since He took our soul, therefore, He assumed the emotions of our souls as well. For He was not able to be troubled or distressed as God. But even if He says, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?, He utters this as man, displaying my infirmities. For when we are in danger, we think that we have been abandoned by God. So He is troubled as man, He weeps as man, He is crucified as man. (De Fide II.7, 25-33, CSEL 78, pp. 75-6)

[W]hen He says, ‘Let not My will be done,’ He indicates the human will by this remark; in adding ‘Yours’, He displays His paternal will, since the human will is for a time, while God’s will is by nature eternal. Therefore, the will of the Father and the will of the Son are not different; for where there is one Godhead, the will is certainly one. (Exposition of Luke X. 60, CCSL 14, 363)

For things that have the same nature as one another will operate in the same way, while with things whose qualities have a different account the account of their operation in all respects would not be the same. (Commentary on the Holy Gospel According to John II.6, ed. Pusey, I, p. 318, 5-8)

Let the inquisitive again reflect that the Savior, in saying that His works bore clear witness that He was God by nature, taught plainly that it would not be among things possible for the operation and power fitting to God to exist in anything indistinguishably unless it too were God by nature. (ibid. III.1, ed. Pusey, I, p. 373, 10-15)

For it is, I think, clear and acknowledged by everyone that the properties of the Godhead are completely inaccessible to the created nature, and its natural attributes could never occur in any other existing thing in an equal and indistinguishable mode. (ibid. III.5, ed. Pusey, I, p. 448, 15-19)

‘If death can die without My dying’ (this clearly refers to the flesh) ‘let the cup depart’ (He says), ‘but’ (since it could not happen otherwise) ‘not as I will but as You will.’ You perceive how powerless again is human nature even in Christ, as it is found in itself; but is raised up to a courage proper to God the Word united to it. (ibid. IV.1, ed. Pusey, I, p. 487, 13-19)

If He perfected us through water and the Spirit, surely the same operated both divinely and humanly at the same time, being, in a single Being, both God and man together. (Commentary on Hebrews, lost fragment)

Things possessing the same operation and exercising the same natural powers must of necessity have wholly the same essence as well, for none of the things that exist will possess indistinguishably the same powers and operations as what is different in nature and different in essence. (Thesaurus, 8. PG 75. 105AB)

Things with the same operation are acknowledged to be of the same essence as well. (Thesaurus 10, PG 105. 137AB)

No sensible person would concede that things different in kind and nature possess the same operation. For fire could not have one and the same operation as water; but just as they possess a distinct definition of essence and qualities, so they will exhibit a different operation as well. (Thesaurus 14, PG 75. 241B)

When the Savior is shown dreading death and saying, ‘If it is possible, let this cup pass from me,’ (Mt. 26:39) reflect again that, when it was in dread of death, the flesh that was borne by God the Word was taught to suffer this no longer. He said to the Father, Not as I will, but as You will.’ (Mt. 26:39) For He did not fear death as Word and God, but was eager to perform the dispensation to the end, for such was the will of the Father. He had as well a volition not to die, because the flesh of its nature deprecated death. Therefore, teaching the manhood to think these thoughts no longer but to seek the will of God, He says as Man, ‘Not as I will but You will’. (Thesaurus 24, PG 75. 397A)

The Savior abolished death by His own death. For just as death would not have been abolished had He not died, so is it with each of the emotions of the flesh. For if He had not felt dread, nature would not be free of dread; if He had not felt distress, there would never have been an end to distress; if He had not been troubled and terrified, it would have never escaped from these things. Applying the same reasoning to each of the human experiences, you will find that the emotions of the flesh were excited in Christ not so that they might prevail as in us, but so that, once excited, they might be abolished by the power of the Word Who dwelt in the flesh, with nature being changed for the better. (Thesaurus 24, PG 75. 397C)

The Word of God became man not in order to perform and utter everything as God before the Incarnation, but so that often through the neediness of the dispensation with the flesh He might say certain things as man. Therefore, since the Mystery had this power, would it not be absurd for the hearers to take offense at His speaking, at times, in a more human way? Foe He speaks as man, and also speaks as God, having power to do both. (Thesaurus 24, PG 75. 400AB)

For how could One Who in works is equal to the Father be inferior as regards His nature? And how could One invested with the same operation and power as He is be different from Him in nature? (Thesaurus 32, PG 75. 453BC)

[T]he most important reason why Cyril is often depicted as a Miaphysite theologian is the self-perpetuating myth that the mia physis formula would be his favorite formula, which he employed many times. We find this over and over again in the literature on the archbishop… How often does Cyril of Alexandria actually employ the mia physis formula? In the writings of the first two years of the Nestorian controversy we encounter it two times only, once in Contra Nestorium, and once in a quotation in Oratio ad Dominas. In comparison, ‘union/unite(d) according to hypostasis is found seventeen times in Contra Nestorium alone (plus four times ‘according to hypostasis’ with other nouns or verbs), four times in the Second Letter to Nestorius, five times in Oratio ad Dominas (plus once ‘according to hypostasis’ with another phrase), four times in the Third Letter to Nestorius, once in the anathemas (and once ‘separated according to hypostasis’ in Oratio ad Augustas). Therefore, at this stage of the controversy, Cyril’s ‘favorite phrase’ is ‘union / unite(d) according to hypostasis’, certainly not the mia physis formula. However, after Theodoret attacked the expression ‘union/unite(d) according to hypostasis’ as an innovation, Cyril dropped it altogether.

It may be added that in Oratio ad dominas, the mia physis formula is found in a quotation from Apollinarius’s Letter to Jovian, which Cyril thought to be written by Athanasius. His explicit reason for this quotation is the occurrence of the epithet ‘Theotokos’, not that it contains the formula. He does not in any way refer to or discuss the formula. In the one time that he speaks of ‘one nature, the incarnate [nature] of the Word himself ’ in Contra Nestorium, it is immediately followed by the analogy of soul and body. Therefore, it should be interpreted in light of this comparison.

Before the reunion with the Orientals in 433, there is only one other work of Cyril’s in which he speaks of ‘one nature’ in a christological context, Contra Orientales. We find the same quotation of pseudo-Athanasius which we also encountered in Oratio ad Dominas, now in Cyril’s defence of the eighth anathema, which states that Emmanuel should be honoured with one worship. Obviously, the reason for this quotation is not that it contains the mia physis formula, but that it also speaks of one worship. After citing pseudo-Athanasius, Cyril gives a brief quotation from Nestorius, “Let us confess God in man; let us revere the man who is co-worshipped because of the divine connection with God the Word”, which he discusses. Cyril then refers to an argument which Andrew of Samosata has used against him: he himself has said that the Son is co-seated on the throne with the Father, together with his own flesh; since συν and μετa are the same thing, why does he attack someone who says that the man must be co-worshipped (συν-) with God the Word and co-named (συν-) God?

In his response, Cyril makes a distinction between things that are one by composition, and things that are two because they are separate and by themselves. When someone attributes συν or μετa “to one person and one nature or hypostasis — as he himself did when he wrote that the Son is seated on the throne “with his own flesh”—the unity by composition is maintained. But when συν or μετa are applied to two separate beings—like Peter and John—, this does not indicate one entity. As usual, Cyril’s point is Christ’s unity over against a division into a man and the Word by themselves. His remark on one person, nature or hypostasis is a general statement. It cannot be concluded from this that the three terms have exactly the same meaning.

Our investigation into Cyril’s use of the mia physis formula so far leads to the following conclusion. In his writings until the reunion with the Orientals in 433 there are only four occurrences in which the archbishop speaks of ‘one nature’ in a christological context. In one of them, it concerns a general statement about the application of συν and μετa to a unity which is compounded. Two times we encounter the mia physis formula in a quotation from Apollinarius’s Letter to Jovian, which Cyril thought to be a work from Athanasius; he does not comment on the formula in any way. The only instance in which Cyril of Alexandria himself actually employs the mia physis formula is found in Contra Nestorium, where it is mentioned without any emphasis. One can only conclude that, in contrast with the many examples of dyophysite language, miaphysite terminology hardly plays a role in Cyril’s christology before the Reunion of 433, and therefore, is certainly not typical of his own christological vocabulary.

It is the partisans of his own party, dissatisfied with the reunion, which occasion him to give more attention to the mia physis formula in several letters…

…It may be concluded that, although the mia physis formula occurs relatively often in [the] letters following the reunion with the Orientals, the main reason that Cyril defends it is probably that he believed it to be taught by Athanasius and other Church Fathers. It is for him a tool —but by no means an essential tool — to stress the ontological unity of the Incarnate Word. He repeatedly explains it by referring to the anthropological analogy: just as the one human nature is a composition of the two natures of soul and body, so Christ is the one Incarnate nature of the Word, out of the natures of the Word and the flesh.

There is only one work of Cyril’s left in which we find the formula, On the Unity of Christ, one of his latest writings, containing an overview of his christology. There is one section in which the archbishop discusses the formula. It starts with a remark by his interlocutor B: “Both natures, then, have been confused and have become one”. Cyril first declares that it would be folly to think that the nature of the Word has been changed into that of flesh, or the other way round, and continues: “We do say that the Son is one and his nature one, even if he is conceived of as having assumed flesh with a rational soul”. When B asks whether there could be two natures, that of God and that of man, Cyril responds that divinity and humanity are different with respect to the principles inhering them, but that in Christ they have concurred into a unity beyond understanding.

When B presses him for an example of the union, Cyril mentions a human being: a human being is conceived of as one, “and his nature also as one, although there is not just one species, but he is rather composed out of two things, I mean, soul and body”. And if one separates the soul from the body, will there not be two men instead of one, he asks. When B refers to the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer man’, spoken of by Paul, understood as soul and body, Cyril answers that the apostle makes a distinction grasped by contemplation only.

B then argues that “if we say that the nature of the Son is one, even if he is regarded as incarnate (σεσαρκωμνς)”, a merger or a mixture must have taken place, “in that the human nature is as it were absorbed in him”. Cyril responds that it would be idle talk if someone alleged that a merger or mixture has taken place, “if it is confessed by us that the nature of the Son, incarnate and made man (σεσαρκωμνυ τε κα νηνρωπηκτς), is one”. And he adds: reasonings will not be able to convince someone. He points to the burning bush as a type of the incarnation.

We see that Cyril’s use of ‘one nature’ corresponds to that in his previous writings. The one nature of the Incarnate Word, the result of a concurrence of divinity and humanity, is compared to the one human nature, which is out of soul and body. The participle ‘incarnate’ belongs to ‘Word’, not to ‘nature’. Therefore, the mia physis is the composition of the two INDIVIDUAL NATURES of the Word and his humanity.

Having investigated all the passages in which Cyril speaks of ‘one nature’ in a christological context, it is clear that the mia physis formula is by no means his favorite formula, and that, although miaphysite terminology increased after the reunion with the Orientals, this was especially due to the questions raised by the partisans in his own party, to which he responded in letters. He defends the formula, as coming from the Fathers, but he explains it by the anthropological analogy, in which dyophysite and miaphysite language come together.

If the mia physis formula is found in Cyril’s own writings before the Reunion of 433 only three times, while two of the occurrences are quotations from pseudo-Athanasius, how is it possible that people in his own party place so much emphasis on the ‘one nature’? It seems that what Lebon writes about the leaders of the Miaphysites in the fifth and sixth centuries, also applies to Cyril’s contemporaries: they were more influenced by the pseudepigraphic Apollinarian writings than by those of Cyril. It is the Apollinarian forgeries which led them to question Cyril’s reunion with the Orientals, and therefore, indirectly, it is these forgeries which led Cyril to give more attention to the mia physis formula in his letters from 433 till 435. It is likely that the same reason induced him to devote a section in On the Unity of Christ to the ‘one nature’. (The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria, p. 521-530)

If uncircumscribability is characteristic of God’s essence, and circumscription is characteristic of man’s essence, but Christ is from both: then He is made known in two properties, as in two natures. How would it not be blasphemous to say that He is uncircumscribed in body as well as spirit, since if His circumscription were removed His human nature would be removed also?

If things do not have the same properties, then their essences are different. It is proper to divinity to be uncircumscribable, bodiless, and formless. It is proper to humanity to be circumscribed, tangible, and three-dimensional. If, therefore, Christ is from both essences, He must be both uncircumscribable and circumscribed. If He is only one or the other, He is of only the one essence of which He has the property — which is heretical.

If Christ cannot be circumscribed, neither can He suffer; for impassibility is equivalent to uncircumscribability. But He is able to suffer, as the Scriptures say. Therefore, He is also circumscribable.

If Christ is uncircumscribable, as you say, not only in respect to His divinity, but also in respect to His humanity, then His humanity is also divinity. For things which have the same properties also have one nature. But if He is of two natures, He is therefore also of two properties: otherwise, by the removal of circumscription, the nature of humanity would also be removed.

If Christ is uncircumscribable, how can He Himself say, “They have pierced My hands and My feet; they have numbered all My bones” (LXX Ps. 21:16-17)? For that which is uncircumscribable does not have a nature to be pierced, nor to have its bones numbered. To believe these words is to confess the circumscription.

If Christ is uncircumscribable, how can the Forerunner say, “See the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?” (Jn. 1:29) For that which is seen is not uncircumscribable, not to mention that which is pointed out with the finger. But if something should be seen and pointed out, then it would be within circumscription. Therefore, Christ is circumscribable.

If Christ is not circumscribable, He is not of two natures, divinity and humanity, since He does not have the property of each. For circumscribability is characteristic of humanity. But if He is of two natures, how can He avoid having the properties of those whose natures He has?

If Christ is not circumscribed, as you say, because He would be diminished in glory, then He was not conceived in the Virgin’s womb either, because He would have endured humiliation. But if He was not only conceived without humiliation, but even born as an infant, then He is circumscribed without shame.

Maleness and femaleness are sought only in the forms of bodies, since none of the differences which characterize sexes can be recognized in bodiless beings. Therefore, if Christ were uncircumscribable, as being without a body. He would also be without the difference of sex. But He was born male, as Isaiah says, from “the prophetess” (Is. 8:18): therefore, He is circumscribed. (Third Refutation of the Iconoclasts)

Let there, however, remain in force what was decreed specifically against Nestorius at the earlier council of Ephesus, at which Cyril of holy memory then presided, lest the impiety then condemned should derive any comfort from the fact that Eutyches is being struck down by condign execration. For the purity of faith and teaching, which we proclaim in the same spirit as did our Holy Fathers, condemns and prosecutes equally both the Nestorian and the Eutychian depravity together with their originators. Fare well in the Lord, most dear brethren. (Epistle 93, To the Council of Chalcedon)

Leo the Great, whilst bishop of [Old] Rome, carefully demonstrated divine matters in his inspired and dogmatic Tome. In this, he was confirmed by the Fourth Synod. He confirmed its decree, and was praised by the sacred, and God-inspired assembly. He…thus radiates the very same light of Orthodoxy, not only upon the entire West, but also to the ends of the East through his God-inspired and dogmatic epistles, through the legates who exercised his authority, and through the peace with which he illumined that great assembly collected by God. Moreover, he also said that if anyone set up or teach another doctrine other than that taught by the Synod, that person should be deposed if he were of the dignity of the priesthood or anathematized if he were a layperson or even a monastic, religious or ascetic. Whatever that God-inspired Synod decreed, Leo, similarly inspired by God, openly confirmed through the holy men Paschasinus, Lucentius and Boniface (as one may hear many times from them, indeed not only from them, but from him who sent them). Dispatching synodical letters, Leo himself testifies and confirms that the speeches, spirit, and decisions of his delegates are not theirs, but his own. Still, even if there were nothing of this, it is sufficient that they were his representatives at the Synod and that when the Synod ended, he professed to abide by its decisions. (Mystagogy, 79)

Together with those sacred writings of the all-wise Cyril, I likewise accept as being sacred and of equal honor, and the mother of the same Orthodoxy, also the God-given and divinely inspired letter of the great and illustrious Leo of godly mind, of the most holy Church of the Romans, or rather the luminary of all under the sun, which he wrote, clearly moved by the divine Spirit, to Flavian, the famous leader of the Queen of Cities, against the perverse Eutyches and Nestorius, hateful to God and deranged. Indeed I call and define this [letter] as ‘the pillar of orthodoxy’, following those holy Fathers who well defined it this way, as thoroughly teaching us every right belief, while destroying every heretical wrong belief, and driving it out of the halls of holy catholic church, guarded by God. With this divinely conceived epistle, and writing I also attach myself to all his letters and teachings as if they issued from the mouth of the chief Peter, and I kiss and cleave to them and embrace them with all my soul.

As I have said previously, I accept these five sacred and divine Councils of the blessed Fathers and all the writings of the all-wise Cyril, and especially those composed against the madness of Nestorius, and the epistle of the eastern leaders which was written to the most godly Cyril himself and which he attested as Orthodox. And [I accept] what Leo, the most holy shepherd of the most holy church of the Romans, wrote, and especially what he composed against the abomination of Eutyches and Nestorius. I recognize the latter as the definitions of Peter, the former those of Mark. (Synodical Letter 2.5.5, Sophronius of Jerusalem and Seventh-Century Heresy pp. 131-135)

The Pillars of Orthodoxy

Today we know the ‘Pillars of Orthodoxy’ to be the Saints that resisted western heresies (i.e. Papal Supremacy, Filioque, Barlaamism, Uniatism, etc.) however, in the past, the Holy Fathers of the Eastern Churches understood the ‘Pillar of Orthodoxy’ to be the Tome of St. Leo written against eastern christological heresies (Monophysitism and Nestorianism).

The parting [between non-Chalcedonians and followers of Chalcedon] begins with ‘in two natures’, which, however, is nothing but the consequence of the Cyrillic ‘perfect in divinity’, ‘the very same One also perfect in humanity’ or ‘One and the same consubstantial with the Father according to divinity’ and ‘consubstantial with us according to humanity’. Why does Timothy [II Aelurus, non-Chalcedonian Patriarch of Alexandria (d. 477), Coptic Synaxarion 12th Amshir] energetically reject the application of the word and concept physis to the ‘complete humanity’ of Christ? He seems to have various reasons for this, and they cannot all be reduced to a common denominator:

(1) To speak of nature means to assert of a subject what belongs to it necessarily and unrelinquishably from birth. To the divine Logos, however, belongs from eternity necessarily and unrelinquishably only the divine essence. To assert of Him a second ‘nature’ would mean that being human belongs to the one and only Son of God just as originally and necessarily as being divine. The Incarnation is rather a deed of the ‘oikonomia’, that is, of the free assumption of human form in time:

‘He is not that which He was not through a metamorphosis or a transformation (conversion); rather, He remained entirely God, consubstantial with the Father Who begot Him; because of the oikonomia [God’s free arrangement of salvation] and not because of His nature, He became human for us and our salvation.’ (Timothy Ael., Contra eos dicunt duas naturas [CPG 5475])

(2) If one must apply to the humanity of Christ the designation ‘second nature of the God Logos’, then one would have to make the same assertions about it as about the divine essence of Christ; what cannot be said of the divine nature must be also be withheld from the human nature:

‘It is impossible to call the life-giving flesh of our Lord the second nature of the God Logos or His second essence. Indeed, it is written that He Who was crucified, the Lord of glory [cf. 1 Cor. 2:8], suffered in His flesh. No one can say that the Lord of Glory suffered in His nature or essence [i.e., in His divinity]. But if the God Logos appropriated Himself another nature, that is, united Himself with a perfect human being, and if Christ is of two natures, as He seems to be for those who speak of two natures, then it follows that they say that He suffered in His nature [i.e., in His divinity] — which is a godless assertion — and that they assert that the divine nature is capable of suffering. For the nature of Christ is only divinity, which also became flesh without transformation for our salvation and so that He might appear in the flesh, according to the Scriptures [cf. 1 Tim. 3:16]…’ (Timothy Ael., op. cit., fol. 19vb)

(Classical Christianity: If the perfect and complete humanity of Christ is not a ‘nature’ then what exactly is it for the followers of Dioscorus, Timothy Aelurus and Severus? Protopresbyter Georges Florovsky supplies the answer: “Hardest of all was intelligibly defining the form and character of the human ‘traits’ in the God-Man synthesis. The followers of Severus could not speak of Christ’s humanity as a ‘nature’. It broke down into a system of traits, for the doctrine of the Logos ‘taking’ humanity was still not developed fully by Monophysitism… The Monophysites usually spoke of the Logos’ humanity as oikonomia. It is not without foundation that the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon detected here a subtle taste of original Docetism. Certainly this is not the Docetism of the ancient Gnostics at all, nor is it Apollinarianism. However, to the followers of Severus the ‘human’ in Christ was not entirely human, for it was not active, was not ‘self-motivated’. The Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth Through Eighth Centuries

Therefore, the Christ of traditional non-Chalcedonianism has but one nature (the divine) in addition to human traits (excluding human will and energy) taken up for the salvation of Man.

It was precisely this consequence that Chalcedon sought to avoid through its distinction between hypostasis and nature. With the text just quoted, Timothy shows that he did not understand this basic idea. (Classical Christianity: St. Paisios the Athonite rightly remarked, “They don’t say that the Monophysites didn’t understand the Holy Fathers – they say that the Holy Fathers did not understand them. In other words, they talk as if they are right and and the Fathers misunderstood them.” Hieromonk Isaac: Elder Paisios of Mount Athos; 2012 For the English Language by the Holy Monastery of St. Arsenios the Cappadocian , p. 659)As long as he kept his concept of nature, he was right in rejecting the two-natures formula. But his two objections against the application of the nature concept to the humanity of Jesus are contradictory. (1) To assert the ‘nature’ of the incarnate Logos can mean only what belongs to Him from eternity as the Son of the Father. To have humanity as a ‘second nature’ would mean that Christ would also have to have been preexistent as a human being, and indeed in the form of God. This, however, would make humbling and exalting, as described in Phil. 2, impossible:

‘If those who assume two natures say that the voluntary kenosis, the humbling and the exalting belong to the human nature [of Christ], then how can it be that He was in the form of God (Phil. 2:6) and renounced His greatness, He Who is worshipped by all in the glory appropriate to God [cf. Phil. 2:11]? How can one say that He took on the form of a slave if He already was one? How has He become like human beings and been found in human form (Phil. 2:7), this human being Who was already this by nature, according to the statements of those who speak of two natures? Then He would have become like God through robbery. But He humbled Himself (Phil. 2:8)…’ (ibid., fol. 18vc)

This original meaning of physis, which the Syriac kyana also contains, is thus to be considered: it means ‘innate essence’. For the Logos of the Father, creaturely humanity can never be ‘innate’, that is ‘nature’. There is absolutely no place for a ‘duality’, for the nature of the Logos is simple. And to a ‘simple’ being one cannot accord a ‘natural duality’ [cf. ibid., fol. 19rb, where Timothy declares it impossible to accord ‘two natures to simple beings’]. Timothy’s rejection of the nature concept for the humanity of Christ is best understood on the basis of this fundamental idea of his. (2) Following this immediately, yet secondarily, is a further determination of nature: it is entirely, completely, with all its characteristics, what Timothy interprets with the words hypostasis (qenōma) and person:

‘There is no nature that is not also hypostasis and no hypostasis that is not person (parsōpā). Thus if there are two natures, there are also with all necessity two persons and even two Christs, as the new teachers proclaim.’ (thus in the 9th refutation of the definition of Chalcedon, fol. 41rc)

In order to escape the Nestorian division into two natures or persons, Timothy reserves the term nature solely for the God Logos, the mia physis tou theo logou (one nature of God the Word), and expresses the humanity only with the sesarkomene. He wants to hold exclusively to the Nicean schema, in which for him the entire doctrine of the Incarnation is expressed — not in a static view, as seems characteristic of Chalcedon, but in the spectacle of the historical event. We will summarize his teaching again with a section of the petition that he sent to Emperor Leo:

‘But I believe that God has put into the mind of your Serenity to set right the statements in this letter, which are a cause of stumbling to the believers; for these statements are in accord, and agreement, and conjunction with the doctrine of Nestorius, who was condemned for cleaving asunder and dividing the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in respect of natures, and persons, and properties, and names, and operations; who also interpreted the words of Scripture to mean two, which are not contained in the Confession of Faith of the 318. For they declared that the Only-Begotten Son of God, Who is of the same Nature with the Father, came down, and became incarnate, and was made man; and suffered, and rose again, and ascended to Heaven; and shall come to judge the quick and the dead. And natures, and persons, and properties were not mentioned by them, nor did they divide them. But they confessed the divine and the human properties to be of One by the dispensation.

Accordingly, I do not agree with the transaction of Chalcedon, because I find in them divisions and cleavage of the dispensation.’ (Zacharias Rh., HE IV 6)

Thus the number ‘two’ cannot be applied at all to Christ as long as the assertion concerns Christ Himself. One cannot speak of two natures or persons or characteristics or names or activities. Similar formulations are found in the History of Dioscorus, but there they exhibit a more advanced form, which belongs to the time of Severus. Thus Dioscorus is supposed to have written to Emperor Marcian:

‘How can the rebellious [Pope] Leo have dared to open his mouth and blaspheme the Most High by saying: we must confess in the Messiah two natures and two characteristics and [two] activities, since the holy church confesses one nature of the incarnate God without mixing or change; [even in death] the divinity of my Master was not separated from His humanity, not even for a moment; but this horrible, this stupid, this accursed Leo, who wanted to separate the soul from the body of our Lord, must immediately and without delay be thrown into utter darkness.’ (F. Nau, JA X 1, p. 254 [with Syriac text on p. 36] cf. Grillmeier, CCT II/1, pp. 136-137: The above-mentioned Logos separation is, however, also rejected by Leo.)

Similarly, Dioscorus is supposed to have written to Juvenal of Jerusalem, still at Chalcedon:

‘Cursed by anyone who assumes two natures in the Messiah after the indivisible unity…! Cursed be anyone who assumes in the Messiah two properties and two activities.’ (ibid., 278 (Syr. p. 64)

(Classical Christianity: Fr. Florovsky offers helpful commentary on the theological formulation above: “In the contemplation of the Monophysites the human in Christ was like a passive object of Divine influence. Divinization or theosis seems to be a unilateral act of Divinity without sufficiently taking into count the synergism of human freedom, the assumption of which in no way supposes a ‘second subject’. In their religious experiment the element of freedom in general was not sufficiently pronounced and this could be called anthropological minimalism.’ The Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth Through Eighth Centuries)

…This introduces the main themes of the Monophysite controversy with the followers of Chalcedon. (Christ in the Christian Tradition, Vol. 2. Part 4. ‘The Church of Alexandria with Nubia and Ethiopia after 451, pp. 31-34)

One of the tragic consequences of the divorce between Christian theory and praxis, between faith and knowledge, is that nowadays knowledge about theological subjects does not necessarily presuppose faith. You can be a theologian and not belong to any church community; in principle, you do not need to believe in God to receive a theological degree. Theology is reduced to one of the subjects of human knowledge alongside with chemistry, mathematics or biology.

Another divorce which needs to be mentioned is that between theology and liturgy. For an Orthodox theologian, liturgical texts are not simply the works of outstanding theologians and poets, but also the fruits of the prayerful experience of those who have attained sanctity and theosis. The theological authority of liturgical texts is, in my opinion, higher than that of the works of the Fathers of the Church, for not everything in the works of the latter is of equal theological value and not everything has been accepted by the fullness of the Church. Liturgical texts, on the contrary, have been accepted by the whole Church as a “rule of faith” (kanon pisteos), for they have been read and sung everywhere in Orthodox churches over many centuries. Throughout this time, any erroneous ideas foreign to Orthodoxy that might have crept in either through misunderstanding or oversight were eliminated by church Tradition itself, leaving only pure and authoritative doctrine clothed by the poetic forms of the Church’s hymns.

Several years ago I came across a short article in a journal of the Coptic Church where it stated that this Church had decided to remove prayers for those detained in hell from its service books, since these prayers “contradict Orthodox teaching.” Puzzled by this article, I decided to ask a representative of the Coptic Church about the reasons for this move. When such opportunity occurred, I raised this question before one Coptic metropolitan, who replied that the decision was made by his Synod because, according to their official doctrine, no prayers can help those in hell. I told the metropolitan that in the liturgical practice of the Russian Orthodox Church and other local Orthodox Churches there are prayers for those detained in hell, and that we believe in their saving power. This surprised the metropolitan, and he promised to study this question in more detail.

During this conversation with the metropolitan I expressed my thoughts on how one could go very far and even lose important doctrinal teachings in the pursuit of correcting liturgical texts. Orthodox liturgical texts are important because of their ability to give exact criteria of theological truth, and one must always confirm theology using liturgical texts as a guideline, and not the other way round. The lex credendi grows out of the lex orandi, and dogmas are considered divinely revealed because they are born in the life of prayer and revealed to the Church through its divine services. Thus, if there are divergences in the understanding of a dogma between a certain theological authority and liturgical texts, I would be inclined to give preference to the latter. And if a textbook of dogmatic theology contains views different from those found in liturgical texts, it is the textbook, not the liturgical texts, that need correction.

Even more inadmissible, from my point of view, is the correction of liturgical texts in line with contemporary norms. Relatively recently the Roman Catholic Church decided to remove the so-called “antisemitic” texts from the service of Holy Friday. Several members of the Orthodox Church have begun to propagate the idea of revising Orthodox services in order to bring them closer to contemporary standards of political correctness. For example, the late Archpriest Serge Hackel from England, an active participant in the Jewish-Christian dialogue, proposed the removal of all texts from the Holy Week services that speak of the guilt of the Jews in the death of Christ (cf. his article “How Western Theology after Auschwitz Corresponds to the Consciousness and Services of the Russian Orthodox Church,” in Theology after Auschwitz and its Relation to Theology after the Gulag: Consequences and Conclusions, Saint-Petersburg, 1999, in Russian). He also maintains that only a ‘superficial and selective’ reading of the New Testament brings the reader to the conclusion that the Jews crucified Christ. In reality, he argues, it was Pontius Pilate and the Roman administration who are chiefly responsible for Jesus’ condemnation and crucifixion.

This is just one of innumerable examples of how a distortion of the lex credendi inevitably leads to “corrections” in the lex orandi, and vice versa. This is not only a question of revising liturgical tradition, but also a re-examination of Christian history and doctrine. The main theme of all four Gospels is the conflict between Christ and the Jews, who in the end demanded the death penalty for Jesus. There was no conflict between Christ and the Roman administration, the latter being involved only because the Jews did not have the right to carry out a death penalty. It seems that all of this is so obvious that it does not need any explanation. This is exactly how the ancient Church understood the Gospel story, and this is the understanding that is reflected in liturgical texts. However, contemporary rules of “political correctness” demand another interpretation in order to bring not only the Church’s services, but also the Christian faith itself in line with modern trends.

The Orthodox Tradition possesses a sufficient number of “defence mechanisms” that prevent foreign elements from penetrating into its liturgical practice. I have in mind those mechanisms that were set in motion when erroneous or heretical opinions were introduced into the liturgical texts under the pretext of revision. One may recall how Nestorianism began with the suggestion to replace the widely-used term Theotokos (Mother of God) with Christotokos (Mother of Christ), the latter was seen as more appropriate by Nestorius. When this suggestion was made, one of the defence mechanisms was activated: the Orthodox people were indignant and protested. Later, another mechanism was put into operation when theologians met to discuss the problem. Finally, an Ecumenical Council was convened. Thus, it turned out that a dangerous Christological heresy, lurking under the guise of a seemingly harmless liturgical introduction, was later condemned by a Council.

To rediscover the link between theology, liturgy and praxis, between lex orandi, lex credendi and lex Vivendi would be one of the urgent tasks of theological education in the 21st century. The whole notion of a “theology” as exclusively bookish knowledge must be put into question. The whole idea of a “theological faculty” as one of many other faculties of a secular university needs to be re-examined. The notions of “non-confessional,” “unbiased,” “objective’ or “inclusive” theology as opposed to “confessional” or “exclusive” must be reconsidered. (Source)

Great-Martyr St. Euphemia who approved the Council of Chalcedon visits St. Paisios the Hagiorite

Patriarch of Antioch Theodore Balsamon ca. 12th cent.

Question: Shall one perform priestly rites or pray together without danger with heretics, namely Jacobites and Nestorians, in their churches or even our own, or might one share a common table with them, or perform sponsorship at holy baptism, or perform memorial services of the departed, or commune of the Divine Sanctified Elements with them? For the areas difficulties create many such things, and I seek what one must do.

“Do not give the holy things to the dogs,” our Lord and God has said, nor “cast pearls before swine.” Indeed, on this account account Canon 64 of the Holy Apostles, the heralds of God, also states, “if any clergyman or layman might enter an assembly of the Jews or heretics to pray, let him be defrocked and excommunicated.” Canon 33 of the Council in Laodicea, but indeed also 6 and 34, states the following: “Concerning not permitting heretics to enter into a house of God while they remain in heresy,” because one must not pray with a heretic or schismatic, “a Christian must not abandon Christ’s martyrs and depart for false martyrs, namely, heretical ones or those that the aforementioned heretics produced. For these are estranged from God. Therefore, let those departing to them be anathematized.” Indeed, on this account we also decided that both clergy and laity are subject not only to excommunication and defrocking when they pray together in a church of Orthodox or heretics or whenever they pray together as clergy, or even share a meal together, but also shall they be punished in a more severe way, according to the provisions of the cited divine canons. For the difficulties of areas, and the increase of heretics, did not change the soundness of the Orthodox Faith. (Canonical Questions of the Most Holy Patriarch of Alexandria, Lord Markos, and the Answers for them by the Most Holy Patriarch of Antioch, Lord Theodoros Balsamon: Question 15. Viscuso, “A Guide to the Church Under Islam” pp. 82-84)

PYRRHUS: But those [who confess only one will] do not do so from an evil disposition or cunning, but only mean thereby to express the highest union.

MAXIMUS: If this be conceded to the Severans, then, taking advantage of this concession, they will say, not unreasonably, “We do not say ‘one nature’ from an evil disposition or cunning, but because we wish, just as you do by the expression ‘one will’, to manifest the Supreme Union [of God and man in Christ].” [*] For those who say what thou has just said lend weapons to them that oppose them, after the manner of David and Goliath. (The Disputation with Pyrrhus, 74-75)

[*] Translator’s Note: The attitude of St. Maximus is in clear contradiction to that found in the recent study Does Chalcedon Divide or Unite?: Towards a Convergence in Orthodox Christology. There, in the “Agreed Statements” held between Orthodox and so-called “Oriental” (i.e. Nestorian and Monophysite) churches at the Third Unofficial Consultation in Geneva, Switzerland, 16-21 August, 1970, a distinction is drawn between “the doctrinal definitions and canonical legislations of a Council, but also between the true intention of the dogmatic definition of a Council and the particular terminology in which it is expressed, which latter has less authority than the intention.” (Does Chalcedon Divide or Unite?, World Council of Churches, 1981. p. 10)

It is worth recalling that St. Cyril initially does not use the term physis with the precision of the Antiochenes, but that he does subsequently move in this direction by accepting the Formula of Union. It might be argued in favor of the WCC study that St. John of Damascus does not refer to the Monophysites as heretics but only as schismatics. However, St. Maximus is quite clear in calling Monophysitism a heresy. This is because Monophysitism, in its Severan form, attempts to confess “two operations” without the underlying natures, a metaphysical impossibility. The Confessor is quite explicit in his accusations against Severus. According to the Confessor, Severus’ error is twofold: 1) he confuses hypostasis and nature and nevertheless calls the properties of each nature a really existent thing (Opuscule 2, PG 91:41C); and 2) that the attempt thus to distinguish two natural properties without their underlying natures is in fact “a real confusion of the real verities in Christ.” (Opuscule 2, PO 44A.) A little later on, referring both to Nestorius and Severus, the Confessor seems to interpret their “intentions” somewhat differently than the Geneva consultation: “Truly, this is a pair of evil and law-breaking men who would thus insanely and wickedly transgress the truth of correct dogmas in opposite [ways].” (Opuscule 2, PG 44AB).

When Alamoundaros, phylarch of the Saracens, had been baptized, the impious Severus sent two bishops to win him over to his leprous heresy, but, by the Providence of God, the man had been baptized by the Orthodox who accepted the Synod [of Chalcedon]. When Severus’ bishops attempted to pervert the phylarch from the true teaching, Alamoundaros refuted them wonderfully with the following theatrical act. For he said to them, ‘I received a letter today telling me that the Archangel Michael was dead.’ When they replied that this was impossible, the phylarch continued, ‘How is it then according to you that God alone was crucified, unless Christ was of two natures, if even an angel cannot die?’ And so Severus’ bishops departed in ignominy. (Chronographia, [digital version] 341 of 845)

Our discussions have now reached the point where the Chalcedonian Orthodox are clearly being told that the Non-Chalcedonians should not be expected to accept Chalcedon as a condition of union. This now seems to be put to us as a condition for continuing our unofficial dialogue. Such a condition is unacceptable and for us can only mean the end of dialogue. We strongly sense that either:

(1) there has taken place a radical change since (the discussions at) Aarhus [1964] and Bristol [1967], or

(2) we have all along been the objects of an ecumenical technique which aims at the accomplishment of inter-communion or communion, or union without agreement on Chalcedon and the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Ecumenical Councils.

The Non-Chalcedonians should very clearly realize that from our side the faith professed cannot be separated from the people who profess. The faith confessed by the Fathers of Chalcedon is the true faith. If we accept that faith we must accept also the Fathers who profess this true faith. Otherwise, the communion of saints confessing this faith is not accepted as a reality. In this connection, I would stress that we are not going to be maneuvered into positions predetermined for us by ecumenical technicians and strategists. (Greek Orthodox Theological Review Spring-Fall 1971)

I should like to be an advocatus diabolus because I feel the need. First, I am wholeheartedly in favor of a reconciliation between eastern churches, but I am not for over-emphasis on the East. Eastern ecumenism is a contradiction in terms. The West also belongs to the oikoumene. We cannot afford to forget the West — and the Tome of Leo. The Christian Tradition is universal. The Byzantine Church was afraid of precipitating a schism by rejecting Leo. We must also be careful. …I have also doubts about agreement on the basis of a one-sided Cyrillian formula. I think it is important to come to terms with the later Ecumenical Councils. (1964, Discussion on the Paper ‘The Problem of the Unification of Non-Chalcedonian Churches of the East with the Orthodox on the Basis of Cyril’s Formula: “Mia Physis tou Theou Logou Sesarkomene’ by Professor Johannes N. Karmiris)

The term “two natures” was introduced of necessity precisely to express the fact that the godhead and manhood persist without confusion in Christ. The Non-Chalcedonians had an aversion for the use number concerning Christ, believing number to bring division into his oneness. But in that way they made it impossible for themselves to express the non-confusion of the godhead and manhood in Him. The Non-Chalcedonians said: “No number of the natures in Christ must be asserted, because number introduces division”. Emperor Justinian observed that, when number is used to indicate thing that are united, a distinction is made only in word and thought, but not a real division among the things. But in any case, where the distinction is kept, number too, necessarily follows (St. Justinian’s ‘Confession of Faith’).

Apart from that, the fact that the Non-Chalcedonians affirmed only one nature in Christ, thus running the risk of confusing the godhead and manhood, forced the Church, both at Chalcedon and afterwards, to affirm that there are two natures in Christ.

It is true that the Non-Chalcedonians, wishing to avoid this confusion, specified that the single nature which they asserted is a “composite nature”. But the composite character made this nature no less one. Furthermore, the Orthodox had a lot of reasons for not admitting a composite nature in Christ, The parts of the composite nature combine to form a being in which each part depends upon the other, objected St. Maximus the Confessor (Epistle 19). Can we admit that the divine nature can combine with the human so as to form one single nature with the human?

Apart from that, the recognition of two natures in Christ’s single hypostasis is necessitated by the fact that His human nature continues in Him in its entirety, not in an inorganic form, but as an organic structure in a way through a reciprocal conditioning of its parts. The human in Christ, the distinctively psychological whole, which neither dissolves itself nor admits an extraneous element into its natural synthesis. Only in this way does it continue in its human ontological status (as the Sixth Ecumenical Council says). Only in this way can the human be the specifically human vehicle for manifesting the divine hypostasis: only thus can the deifying action of the godhead live in a human way. …The expression “one hypostasis in two natures” takes account of these two different unities in Christ and does not confuse them. It expresses the quality of these different unities more adequately than the expression “a composite nature” or than the identifying of nature with hypostasis (The Christology of the Synods, p. 130-137)

…[W]e should never believe that dogmatic terminologies of the past are simply temporary formulations without continuing significance. There cannot be a fruitful discussion on dogmatical differences without careful reference to historical terminology. We are bound to use the terms; through these we confess the truth, guided by the Holy Spirit in the Church. We are not imprisoned by terminologies; but we are bound by the spirit, if not the letter, of the Fathers and their understanding of Christian truth.

I do not think our separation [with Non-Chalcedonians] is due only to historical misunderstandings about the terms physis, hypostasis, ousia, prosopon, etc. These terms have taken a definite sense in the effort of the whole undivided Church to voice the one truth of the revelation of God. They used the Greek language. Well, Greek is the language of the New Testament. Everything in early Christianity is Greek. We are all Greeks in our thinking as Christians. This is not meant in a narrow nationalistic sense, but as part of our common spiritual and intellectual background. The Fathers worked out an interpretation from which we simply cannot escape. They had to clothe the event of revelation in understandable language and categories. The difficulty was there right from the beginning, to understand fully these categories and interpret them fully in the realm of soteriology and anthropology. The special difficulty was really to interpret “hypostasis” in regard to the union of the two natures. Chalcedon emphasized the atreptos [without change]. This implies that in One hypostasis of the Incarnate Logos humanity was present in its absolute completeness — teleios anthropos, although it was the proper humanity of the Logos. The term physis is used in the Chalcedonian definition precisely for the purpose to emphasize this “completeness”. In fact, atreptos and teleiosanthropos belong indivisibly together. Again, the “complete” human “nature” is free of sin, sin being a reduction of human nature to subhuman condition.

At this point I want to suggest a distinction which I have made already many years ago, in my Russian book, The Byzantine Fathers. There are, in fact, two different kinds of dyophysitism — I call them respectively: symmetrical and asymmetrical. Nestorianism is a symmetrical dyophysitism: there is strict and complete parallelism of two natures which lead inevitably to the duality of prosopa or subjects, which may be united only in unity of function — this is the meaning of the Nestorian prosopon tes henoseos, which coordinates the two “natural” prosopa. The dyophysitism of Chalcedon is, on the contrary, an asymmetrical dyophysitism: there is but one hypostasis, as the subject of all attributions, although the distinction of Divine and human natures is carefully safeguarded. The duality of prosopa is emphatically rejected. The crux of the definition is precisely here: hena kai ton auton. “Humanity” is included in the Divine hypostasis and exists, as it were, within this one hypostasis. There is no symmetry: two natures, but one hypostasis. The human nature is, as it were, sustained by the Divine hypostasis: enhypostatos. Indeed, this enhypostasia, as it has been explained in the later Byzantine theology, indicates a different status of Christ’s humanity in comparison with the humanity of “ordinary” men — psiloi anthropoi. It is the humanity of the Logos. Yet, in character it is “consubstantial” with the humanity of men. But Christ is not a man, although kata ten anthropoteta He is homoousios hemin. The “status” of His humanity, however, is different from ours: choris hamartias. This has a decisive soteriological significance: Christ was exempt from the inevitability of death, and consequently His death was a voluntary death, or free sacrifice. It would be out of place to develop this idea now any longer. But it may be helpful to say a word or two on the Christological significance of our conception of Sin, in its relationship to human “nature”. Again, one may develop two basic conceptions of man, which I use to denote as anthropological maximalism and anthropological minimalism. The obvious instances are: Pelagius, on the one hand, and Augustine, on the other. The “high” conception of man leads inevitably to low Christology: man needs but a pattern of perfection and example to follow. This is precisely the line of Nestorius. On the other hand, a pessimistic anthropology requires a “maximalist” Christology. In this case man needs, in the phrase of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, “God Incarnate” as his Savior.

Here, I have to offer the solution that I suggested in a paper published only in Russian several years ago. One has to speak of symmetrical and asymmetrical dyophysitism. The symmetrical, consistent with the formula true God, and true man, accepts that ontologically there is an equal share of divinity and humanity in the one hypostasis of Christ, but further it accepts that there is an ontological identification of the humanity of Christ with humanity in general. This can lead to a crypto-Nestorian distinction or even separation of two persons. Well, can you say that Christ was of two hypostases? This can lead to maximalist conception of man which can result in a maximalist conception of the Incarnation.

Chalcedon was clearly for asymmetrical dyophisitism. The humanity of Christ is proper to the humanity that the Divine Logos fully and atreptos assumed. There is, however, a certain dissimilarity between humanity in general and humanity of Christ as the Divine Logos, because this humanity is sinless and incorruptible. You can say that Christ was free from the necessity to die. The Augustinian position seems not to pay so much attention to this dissimilarity and the Monophysites risk also keeping this dissimilarity in a consistent way by slipping to the position of absolute ontological consubstantiality which denies in Christ the full qualities of humanity in general. (Aug. 12th, 1964 Discussion on the Paper “Chalcedonians and Monophysites After Chalcedon” by The Rev. Professor J. Meyendorff. Morning Session)

The Universal Church is made of all the local Churches in communion with each other. The Fathers tell us that She is the one Ark of Salvation given by God to the people… the one Bride of Christ. She is the spiritual Mother who alone through Baptism can give birth to children for a new life and make them sons of God. As the Body of Christ, She is the only place where people can truly be united with God and each other through the sanctifying power of the Spirit. Does this mean that no person can be saved and sanctified outside of allegiance to the visible Church? There are hints in the Fathers that they know the freedom of the Holy Spirit in His gifts, and that He can bring them to people beyond the usual ways of salvation, in the place where He finds the corresponding disposition of the heart: ‘Many of those who are outside of us belong to us — those whose virtues anticipate faith and who do not possess the name of believer as they already possess the reality,’ says St. Gregory the Theologian… Of his sister he says: ‘All her life was a purification and perfecting… I dare to say that Baptism brought her not grace, but perfection.’ (The Mystery of Faith: An Introduction to the Teaching and Spirituality of the Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, pp. 128-129)

How did the Word Incarnate truly become a human being, if he lacked that which best characterizes a nature as rational? For what is deprived of the movement of longing that follows desire has no share in any power of life. And that which does not possess any power of life out of its nature is clearly not a soul of any kind, without which the flesh is not what it is. Therefore the economy would be a mere fantasy, if he merely had the shape of flesh. But if, as Severus said, he did not have, as man, a natural will, the Word Incarnate would not fulfill the hypostatic union with flesh, endowed by nature with a rational soul and intellect. For if he was truly, as man, lacking a natural will, he would not truly have become perfect man. And if he did not truly become perfect man, he did not become man at all. For what kind of existence does an imperfect nature have, since its principle of existence no longer exists? The purport therefore of Severus, and his followers, is by a certain natural diminishment to expel the assumed nature in the ineffable union, and to cover themselves with the defilement of Mani’s fantasy, Apollinaris’ confusion, and Eutyches’ fusion. I remember when I was staying in the island of Crete, that I heard from certain false bishops of the Severan party, who disputed with me, that ‘we do not say, in accordance with The Tome of Leo, that there are two energies in Christ, because it would follow that there are two wills, and that would necessarily introduce a duality of persons, nor again do we say one energy, which might be regarded as simple, but we say, in accordance with Severus, that one will, and every divine and human energy proceeds from one and the same God the Word Incarnate.’ Against them one might angrily apply that part of the prophecy: “O, O, flee from the north; in Zion you are saved, you who inhabit the daughter of Babylon.” (Zec. 2:6-7) From the north: that is truly the understanding of Severus, a place become gloomy, and deprived of divine the continuance of the divine light. Daughter of Babylon: the confided teaching of false dogmas, wickedly brought forth from the most wicked habit picked up from him, which those inhabit, who have turned away from the light of knowledge, and not with those to be saved through conversion to Zion, I mean the Church.

For the doctrine of Severus, when examined is opposed both to theology and to the economy. (Opuscule 3)

Theodore, the most holy bishop of the city of Dara in Libya, told us this:

When I was syncellos to the saintly Pope Eulogios [of Alexandria], in my sleep I saw a tall, impressive looking man who said to me: ‘Announce me to Pope Eulogios.’ I asked him: ‘Who are you, my lord? How do you wished to be announced?’ He replied: ‘I am Leo, Pope of Rome’, so I went in and announced: ‘The most holy and blessed Leo, Primate of the Church of the Romans, wishes to pay you his respects. As soon as Pope Eulogios heard, he got up and came running to meet him. They embraced each other, offered a prayer and sat down. Then the truly godly and divinely-inspired Leo said to Pope Eulogios: ‘Do you know why I have come to you?’ The other said he did not: ‘I have come to thank you’, he said, ‘because you have defended so well, and so intelligently, the letter which I wrote to our brother, Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople. You have declared my meaning and sealed up the mouths of the heretics. And know, brother, that it is not only me whom you have gratified by this labor of yours, but also Peter, the Chief of the Apostles; and, above all, the very Truth which is proclaimed by us, which is Christ our God.’ I saw this, not only once, but three times. Convinced by the third apparition, I told it to the saintly Pope Eulogios. He wept when he heard it and, stretching out his hands to heaven, he gave thanks to God, saying: ‘I give you thanks, Lord Christ, our God, that you have made my unworthiness become a proclaimer of the truth, and that, by the prayers of your servants Peter and Leo, your Goodness has received our feeble endeavor as you did receive the widow’s two mites.’ (The Spiritual Meadow, 148)

Of Cyril, to Proclus, the Bishop of Constantinople, concerning Theodore of Mopsuestia, asking Proclus that he should not permit him to be anathematized since this would be a cause of disturbance.

St. Cyril of Alexandria ca. 376-444

With difficulty, at times, and with many labors of your holiness and the Holy Synod which assembled at Ephesus, the churches of God everywhere rejected the vain babblings of Nestorius. But throughout the East some were exceedingly vexed at this, not only the laity but also those assigned to the sacred ministry. Just as the more chronic of illnesses are somehow more difficult regarding medication, or even perhaps entirely reject it, so also a soul sick with the rottenness of distorted thoughts and teachings has an illness hard to cast off. Yet by the grace of God either in pretense or in truth they speak and preach one Christ and anathematize the impious verbiage of Nestorius. In the meanwhile things there are in much tranquility and they run toward what is steadfast in the faith day by day, even those who once were tottering.

But now, as my lord, the most holy Bishop of Antioch, John, has written to me, the beginning of another storm has arisen among them and quickly there is somehow much alarm lest some of those who are easily carried away would sink down again to what was in the beginning. They said that some arrived at that great city [Constantinople] and then approached the most pious and Christ-loving emperors and demanded through their holy sanction that the books of Theodore of Mopsuestia be anathematized and the man himself, just named. But his name in the East is great and his writings are admired exceedingly. As they say, all are bearing it hard that a distinguished man, one who died in communion with the churches, now is being anathematized. That we find in his writings some things said strangely and full of unmixed blasphemy is doubtful to no one of those who are accustomed to think the truth.

Let your holiness know that when the exposition composed by him was produced at the holy synod [at Antioch called by John], as those who produced it said, containing nothing healthy, the holy synod condemned it as full of perverted thoughts and, as it were, somehow a spring gushing forth the impiety of Nestorius. But while condemning those who think in this way, in prudence the synod did not mention the man, nor did it subject him to an anathema by name, through prudence, in order that some by paying heed to the opinion of the man might not cast themselves out of the churches. Prudence in these matters is the best thing and a wise one.

If he were still among the living and was a fellow-warrior with the blasphemies of Nestorius, or desired to agree with what he wrote, he would have suffered the anathema also in his own person. But since he has gone to God, it is enough, as I think, that what he wrote absurdly be rejected by those who hold true doctrines, since by his books being around the chance to go further sometimes begets pretexts for disturbances. And in another way since the blasphemies of Nestorius have been anathematized and rejected, there have been rejected along with them those teachings of Theodore which have the closest connection to those of Nestorius. Therefore, if some of those in the East would do this unhesitatingly, and there was no disturbance expected from it, I would have said that grief at this makes no demands on them now and I would have told them in writing.

But it, as my lord, the most holy Bishop of Antioch, John, writes, they would choose rather to be burned in a fire than do any such thing, for what purpose do we rekindle the flame that has quieted down and stir up inopportunely the disturbances which have ceased lest perhaps somehow the last may be found to be worse than the first? And I say these things although violently objecting to the things which Theodore, already mentioned, has written and although suspecting the disturbances which will be on the part of some because of the action, lest somehow some may begin to grieve for the teachings of Nestorius as a contrivance in the fashion of that spoken of by the poet among the Greeks, “They mourned in semblance for Patroclus but each one mourned her own sorrows.” (Homer, Iliad 19.302)

If, therefore, these words please your holiness, deign to indicate it, in order that it may be settled by a letter from both of us. It is possible even for those who ask these things to explain the prudence of the matter and persuade them to choose to be quiet rather and not to become an occasion of scandal to the churches.

I have sent to you also the copy of the letter to me from my lord, the most holy bishop, John. When your holiness has read it, you will have a complete insight into the matter. (Letter 73, to St. Proclus of Constantinople)

St. Justinian the Emperor ca. 483-565

Now, when every premise put forth by these heretics who defend Theodore has been refuted, they then try to say that Cyril of holy memory commended Theodore in a certain part of his letter: they say this to deceive those who do not know the facts… St. Cyril condemned the impious Theodore, even if someone were to discover some place where, St. Cyril said something in behalf of Theodore, as they think, Theodore would still remain under condemnation. We find that many of the holy fathers received heretics: for example, St. Damasus, St. Athanasius, and St. Basil received Apollinaris, and Leo of holy memory received Eutyches. But even though they had been favorably received, they were nonetheless unable to escape from the condemnation and anathema directed against them and their impiety as soon as their wickedness had been exposed. (Edict on the Right Faith)

When the news had circulated, as people reported that the great Euthymius had accepted the definition of the faith proclaimed at Chalcedon, all the monks about to accept it, had they not been prevented by one Theodosius, in appearance a monk but in reality a precursor of Antichrist. Coming to Palestine, this man beguiled the empress Eudocia, who was here at that time, and seduced all the monastic population, inveighing against the Council of Chalcedon as having subverted the true faith and approved the doctrine of Nestorius…While at that time almost all the urban population and the monks of the desert followed his apostasy, of the whole desert only the great Euthymius refused to be of his communion. Theodosius was clever enough to send for him because of his great reputation; since the great Euthymius refused to come to the holy city, Theodosius sent to him two monastic archimandrites to invite him to join his party — Elpidius, the disciple and successor of the great Passarion, and Gerontius, who had succeeded blessed Melania. When these men arrived and began their plea, the great Euthymius said, ‘Far be it from me to share in the murderous crimes of Theodosius or be seduced by his heresy.’ Elpidius and Gerontius replied, ‘But ought we to share the doctrines of Nestorius, which have been approved by the council now assembled at Chalcedon by means of the expression “in two natures”? Where have we read in Holy Scripture, or which of the holy fathers has taught us, that Christ is to be acknowledged in two natures, as the council has affirmed?’

The great Euthymius said in answer, ‘I have not read in detail everything that this council has examined and enacted, but as regards the definition it has issued I cannot in any respect accuse it of heresy. It commends the faith of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers who assembled at Nicea, and professes observing it and keeping it unshakable and inviolate; it teaches following the one hundred and fifty fathers at Constantinople and those who assembled at Ephesus against the impious Nestorius; it calls Bishop Cyril of Alexandria its ally and inscribes him as teacher of the true faith; it proclaims the holy Virgin mother of God, and professes that of her was born according to the flesh the Only-begotten Son and Word of God, and ascribes to Him two generations, one from the Father, timeless and bodiless, and the other from the virgin mother, in time and in an animate body; it professes that the one Christ is to be acknowledged in two natures in accordance with the concepts of godhood and manhood. Consequently, it applies the expressions “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” both because of those who have the effrontery to divide or separate the ineffable and irreversible hypostatic union that took place in the womb and because of those who say that the Word of God became flesh by transformation and make the flesh of the Only-begotten of one substance with the godhood, and further because of those who do not profess the hypostatic union of the Word with the flesh but concoct the impious monstrosity of a commixture, confusion, and blending of essences, and who say that the nature of the godhood and that of the flesh have been made one nature, with the consequence that, according to their account, neither can Christ’s passibility be preserved because of the impassibility of his godhood nor, conversely, can His impassibility because of the passibilty of His manhood. It was, accrodingly, for this purpose of a correct understanding that the council inserted the expression “in two” into its definition, not as if dividing Christ into individual parts but professing the same Christ in each one and each one in the same Christ. Consequently, we too, when we hear the council affirming Christ in two natures, do not suppose that it is introducing division or cleavage into the composite hypostasis of Christ, but acknowledge that it signifies the difference of the natures, in accordance with the words of the sainted Archbishop Cyril of Alexandria, “not as if the difference of the natures is destroyed by the union”.’ (Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Euthymius 27)

Such a one, therefore, has now shown himself among us, Eutyches, for many years a presbyter and archimandrite , pretending to hold the same belief as ours, and to have the right Faith in him: indeed he resists the blasphemy of Nestorius, and feigns a controversy with him, but the exposition of the Faith composed by the 318 holy fathers, and the letter that Cyril of holy memory wrote to Nestorius, and one by the same author on the same subject to the Easterns, these writings, to which all have given their assent, he has tried to upset, and revive the old evil dogmas of the blasphemous Valentinus and Apollinaris. He has not feared the warning of the True King: Who so shall cause one of the least of these little ones to stumble, it was better that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea. But casting away all shame, and shaking off the cloak which covered his error , he openly in our holy synod persisted in saying that our Lord Jesus Christ ought not to be understood by us as having two natures after His incarnation in one substance and in one person: nor yet that the Lord’s flesh was of the same substance with us, as if assumed from us and united to God the Word hypostatically: but he said that the Virgin who bare Him was indeed of the same substance with us according to the flesh, but the Lord Himself did not assume from her flesh of the same substance with us: but the Lord’s body was not a man’s body, although that which issued from the Virgin was a human body, resisting all the expositions of the holy Fathers. (Letter 22.3)

For this man: this Eutyches, keeping his diseased and sickly opinion hid within him, has dared to attack our gentleness, and unblushingly and shamelessly to instil his own blasphemy into many minds: saying that before the Incarnation indeed, our Saviour Jesus Christ had two natures, Godhead and manhood: but that after the union they became one nature; not knowing what he says, or on what he is speaking so decidedly. For even the union of the two natures that came together in Christ did not, as your piety knows, confuse their properties in the process: but the properties of the two natures remain entire even in the union. And he added another blasphemy also, saying that the Lord’s body which sprang from Mary was not of our substance, nor of human matter: but, though he calls it human, he refuses to say it was consubstantial with us or with her who bare him, according to the flesh. (Letter 26.1)

For I do not say that the body of Christ was without a soul, but I confess that it was animated with a rational soul, and I assert that no fusing together took place, nor putting together, nor a refusion as some say, but that the Word of God is unchangeable and immutable according to nature and insusceptible of all suffering according to his own nature. For the divine is impassible and by no means endures the overshadowing of change, but rather is fixed in its own goodness and has unchangeable continuance in essence. I say, moreover, that one Christ and Lord, the only begotten Son of God, suffered for us in his flesh according to the Scriptures, that is, according to the words of blessed Peter (cf. 1 Pet. 4:1) But the force of the statements was written only against the teachings of Nestorius. For they throw out what he said and wrote in error. Those who anathematize and deny his evil teaching will cease to object to the documents which have been written by us. For they see that the meaning of the statements only goes against his blasphemies. When communion has been restored and peace made among the churches, when it shall be permitted us to write in answer without being suspected, either for those who are there to write to us, or for us again to reply to them, then we also will be satisfied very easily. Some of those things which were written by us are not at all properly understood by some, and these will be clarified. With the help of God we will satisfy them, not then as opponents but as brothers, because all things are going rightly. And of what we have written attacking the teachings of Nestorius, there is none at all which disagrees either with Sacred Scripture or indeed with the definition of faith which was expounded by the holy Fathers, I mean those who were gathered in Nicaea in their own time. (To Acacius of Beroea, Letter 33.10)

Therefore we confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and body, begotten before ages from the Father according to his divinity, and that, in recent days, he himself for us and for our salvation was born from the Virgin Mary according to his humanity, consubstantial to the Father himself according to divinity and consubstantial to us according to his humanity, for a union was made of his two natures. We confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. With this understanding of a union without fusion we confess that the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God, because God the Word was made flesh and was made man, and from his very conception he united to himself a temple taken from her. And we know that theologians regard some of the evangelical and apostolic sayings regarding the Lord as common, that is, as pertaining to one person, and that theologians divide others of the sayings as pertaining to two natures, and refer those proper to God to the divinity of Christ, but the lowly ones to his humanity.

…For the Lord Jesus Christ is one, even if the difference of the natures, from which we state the ineffable union has been made is not ignored. Let your holiness deign to control the mouths of those saying that a mixture or confusion or blending of God the Word with the flesh took place, for it is likely that some are babbling these ideas also about me, as if I have thought or said them. But so far am I from thinking any such thing, that I consider that they are mad who imagine that a shadow of change is able to occur with regard to the divine nature of the Word. For he remains what he is always, and he is not changed, but instead never would be changed and will not be capable of alteration. Everyone of us confesses that the Word of God is, moreover, impassible, even though he himself is seen arranging the dispensation of the mystery all-wisely by assigning to himself the sufferings that happened to his own body. And in this way, also, the all-wise Peter speaks, “since Christ has suffered in the flesh” and not in the nature of his ineffable divinity. (To John of Antioch, Letter 39.3,6)

[T]he brethren at Antioch, understanding in simple thoughts only those from which Christ is understood to be, have maintained a difference of natures, because, as I said, divinity and humanity are not the same in natural quality, but proclaimed one Son and Christ and Lord as being truly one; they say his person is one, and in no manner do they separate what has been united. Neither do they admit the natural division as the author of the wretched inventions was pleased to think, but they strongly maintain that only the sayings concerning the Lord are separated, not that they say that some of them separately are proper to the Son, the Word of God the Father, and others are proper to another son again, the one from a woman, but they say that some are proper to his divinity and others again are proper to his humanity. For the same one is God and man. But they say that there are others which have been made common in a certain way and, as it were, look toward both, I mean both the divinity and the humanity. What I am saying is the same as this…since he is one Christ, both Son and Lord, we say that his person also is one, both we and they say it. (Letter 40.10-14, 16-18)

Some attack the exposition of faith which those from the East have made and ask, “For what reason did the Bishop of Alexandria endure or even praise those who say that there are two natures?” Those who hold the same teachings as Nestorius say that he thinks the same thing too, snatching to their side those who do not understand precision. But it is necessary to say the following to those who are accusing me, namely, that it is not necessary to flee and avoid everything which heretics say, for they confess many of the things which we confess. For example, when the Arians say that the Father is the creator and Lord of all, does it follow that we avoid such confessions? Thus also is the case of Nestorius even if he says there are two natures signifying the difference of the flesh and the Word of God, for the nature of the Word is one nature and the nature of his flesh is another, but Nestorius does not any longer confess the union as we do. (To Eulogius the Priest, Letter 44)

But since I have learned that some of these foolish men go about saying that the perverse teaching of Nestorius has prevailed among all the most God-fearing bishops in the East and is considered to be right by them and that it is necessary to follow it, I thought that the following ought to be made clear, or the most God-fearing bishops throughout all the East along with my lord John, the most God-fearing Bishop of the Church of Antioch, made it clear to all through a written and clear confession that they condemn the “profane novelties” of Nestorius and anathematize them with us and they never thought them worthy of any consideration but follow the evangelic and apostolic doctrines and harm in no manner the confession of the Fathers. For they also confessed with us that the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God and did not add that she is the Mother of Christ or the Mother of a man, as those say who defend the unhappy and loathed opinions of Nestorius. But they said distinctly that there is one Christ and Son and Lord, God the Word ineffably begotten of God the Father before all ages and that he was begotten in most recent times of a woman according to flesh, so that he is both God and man at once, perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity. And they believe that his person is one separating him in no way into two sons, or christs, or lords. If some men telling lies, therefore, say that the bishops of the East think anything different from these statements, let them not be believed, but let them be sent away as cheats and liars down to their father the devil so that they may not upset those who desire to walk uprightly. If some men fabricate letters for their own purposes and bring them around as if they were written by the person of more illustrious men than they, they ought not to be believed. How are those who once confessed the faith in writing able to write something else, as if they were carried away by repentance to the state of not wishing to think the truth. (To Valerian of Iconium, Letter 50.30-31)

I know that the nature of God is impassible, unchangeable, and immutable, even though by nature of His humanity Christ is one in both natures and from both natures.(To Pope Sixtus, Letter 53.2)

We know that there is one Son and Christ and Lord Who is God and man, and we state that the divinity is His and likewise also the humanity is His. For He sometimes speaks divinely as God and He sometimes speaks humanly as man. Therefore since they [John of Antioch and his bishops] confessed these doctrines, how was it anything but excessive of them fight still against those who did not want the schism to prevail and incline the churches in the East into heresy? Would that all the other bishops were so disposed.

…Because of this, when writing to the most God-fearing Bishop of Antioch, John, I derided their calumnies. For I did not arrive at this opinion out of a change of mind, nor do I find that I ever said such a thing in a volume or a letter or a book. Neither do we know what on earth the word coessentiation (Grk. synousiosis) means. (To Eusebius the Priest, Letter 54.2-4,6)

I learned from the beloved monk Paul that your reverence up to this day refuses communion with the most pious John (of Antioch) because there are some in the Church of Antioch who either still think as Nestorius did, or have thought so and perhaps desisted. Accordingly let your clemency estimate whether those who are said to be reconciled are nakedly and shamelessly holding the doctrines of Nestorius and telling them to others, or have had their consciences seared once and are now reconciled after having regretted that by which they were held fast, and are ashamed perhaps to admit their blunder. For it happens that some such experiences occur to those who have been beguiled.

And if you see them now agreeing with the true faith, forget about what has gone by. For we wish to see them denying rather than advocating the baseness of Nestorius in a shameless opinion, and in order not to appear to prize a love of strife let us accept communion with the most pious bishop, John, yielding to him for prudential reasons, not being too demanding in the use of language with regard to those who repent, for the matter as I said, requires a great deal of charity. (To Deacon Maximus of Antioch, Letter 57.1-2)

I see at a glance that the most pious bishop, John, himself has need of much charity, in order that he may win those who are rebellious. Often harsh collisions repel those who have been disgraced, and it better to rescue those who were opponents by gentleness rather than to hurt them with the spareness of precision. Just as if their bodies were ill, it would doubtless be necessary of course to stretch out a hand to them, so since their souls are in pain there is need of much charity as if it were a medicine being furnished for them. Little by little they will themselves come to a sincere disposition and these are the “services of help and power of administration” (1 Cor. 12:28) which the blessed Paul named.

Let not your reverence, therefore, be disturbed, and do not view with extreme precision the negotiations now being conducted especially in the present crisis. We do not desire to cut but to tie following the words of the our Savior, “It is not the healthy,” He says, “who need a physician, but they who are sick.” (Lk. 5:31) And if so, as he says again, “I have not come to call the just, but sinners to repentance.” (Lk. 5:32) (To Deacon Maximus of Antioch, Letter 58.2-3)

But now, as my lord, the most holy bishop of Antioch , John, has written to me, the beginning of another storm has arisen among them and quickly there is somehow much alarm lest some of those who are easily carried away would sink down again to what was in the beginning. They say that some arrived at that great city [ Constantinople ] and then approached the most pious and Christ-loving emperors and demanded through their holy sanction that the books of Theodore of Mopsuestia be anathematized and the man himself, just named. But his name in the East is as great and his writings are admired exceedingly. As they say, all are bearing it hard that a distinguished man, one who died in communion with the churches, now is being anathematized. That we find in his writings some things said strangely and full of unmixed blasphemy is doubtful to no one of those who are accustomed to think the truth.

Let your holiness know that when the exposition composed by him was produced at the holy synod [The synod at Antioch called by John], as those who produced it said, containing nothing healthy, the holy synod condemned it as full of perverted thoughts and, as it were, somehow a spring gushing forth the impiety of Nestorius. But while condemning those who think in this way, in prudence the synod did not mention the man, nor did it subject him to an anathema by name, through prudence, in order that some by paying heed to the opinion of the man might not cast themselves out of the churches. Prudence in these matters is the best thing and a wise one.

If he were still among the living and was a fellow-warrior with the blasphemies of Nestorius, or desired to agree with what he wrote, he would have suffered the anathema also in his own person. But since he has gone to God, it is enough, as I think, that what he wrote be absurdly rejected by those who hold true doctrines, since by his books being around the chance to go further sometimes begets pretexts for disturbances. And in some other way since the blasphemies of Nestorius have been anathematized and rejected, there have been rejected along with the teachings of Theodore which have closest connection to those of Nestorius. Therefore, if some of those in the East would do this unhesitatingly, and there was no disturbance expected from it, I would have said that grief at this makes no demands on them now and I would have told them in writing.

But if, as my lord, the most holy Bishop of Antioch, John, writes, they would choose rather to be burned in a fire than do such a thing, for what purpose do we rekindle the flame that has quieted down and stir up inopportunely the disturbances which have ceased lest perhaps somehow the last may be found to be worse than the first? And I say these things although violently objecting to the things which Theodore, already mentioned, has written and although suspecting the disturbances which will be on the part of some because of the action, lest somehow some may begin to grieve for the teachings of Nestorius as a contrivance in the fashion of that spoken of by the poet among the Greeks, ” They mourned in semblance for Patroclus but each mourned her own sorrows.” (Homer, Iliad 19. 302)

If, therefore, these words please your holiness, deign to indicate it, in order that it may be settled by a letter from both of us. It is possible even for those who ask these things to explain the prudence of the matter and persuade them to choose to be quiet rather and not become an occasion of scandal to the churches.(To St. Proclus of Constantinople, Letter 72.2-6)

But if the two natures have been brought into one mingling, because they happen to be of different substances, neither one is preserved but both have disappeared after they have been blended.(To Priest Photius of Alexandria, Letter 98)

One of the fathers told us that the blessed Ephraim, Patriarch of Antioch, had a great deal of zeal and fervor for the Orthodox faith. One day he learned that a stylite in one of the regions around Hierapolis was one of Severus’ excommunicate Acephalites. He went to this stylite with the intention of talking him round. When he got there the godly Ephraim began to urge and entreat the stylite to take refuge in the Apostolic Throne [of Antioch] and to enter into communion with the Catholic and Apostolic Church. In answer the stylite said to him: ‘It will never be the case that I will communicate with the Synod’. The godly Ephraim rejoined: ‘Well then, what have I got to do to convince you that, by the grace of Christ Jesus our Lord, the holy Church has been set free of every trace of heretical teaching’? The stylite said: ‘Let us light a fire, my lord Patriarch, and let you and me go into it. If one of us comes out unharmed, he is the Orthodox and he is the one we ought to follow’. He said this to terrify the Patriarch; but the godly Ephraim said to the stylite: ‘You ought to have obeyed me as a father, my child, and to have asked nothing of us. Since you have asked something which is beyond my meager ability, I have put my trust in the mercies of the Son of God that, for the sake of your soul’s salvation, I will do what you suggest.’ Then the godly Ephraim said to those who stood by: ‘Blessed be the Lord! Bring some wood here’. When the wood arrived, the Patriarch lit it before the column and he said to the stylite: ‘Come down and we will both walk into the fire to carry out your test’. The stylite was amazed at the Patriarch’s trust in God and he did not want to come down. The Patriarch said to him: ‘ Was it not you who suggested we do this? How is it you no longer want to go through with it?’ Then the Patriarch took off the omophorion he was wearing and, coming close to the fire, prayed in these words: ‘Lord Jesus Christ our God, who for our sakes condescended truly to be made flesh of our Lady the holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, show us the truth’. When the prayer was finished, he threw his omophorion into the fire. The fire burned for three hours. Then, when the wood was all burnt up, he retrieved the omophorion from the fire — still in one piece. It was undamaged and unmarked and there was no sign to be found on it of having been in the fire. When he saw what had happened, the stylite received instruction, rejected Severus and his heresy with an oath, and entered the holy church. He received Communion at the hands of the blessed Ephraim, glorifying God. (The Spiritual Meadow, 36)

‘But the council [of Chalcedon] is to be faulted on another score as well’, my friend says. ‘When it behaved adversely towards Dioscorus, it was opposed by him, he being Pope of Alexandria at the time, and a much opposed to Nestorian teachings. It wasn’t for no reason that it deposed this man from his throne, since it was angry at him solely for being an enemy of Nestorius, but some of the rhetorical mistatements and accusations of such speeches pro and contra are of a kind that would suit Tertullus, the man who spoke to Felix on behalf of the Jews against Paul.’

Such things are inventions aimed at suborning those not well-equipped to judge. The council sumoned Dioscorus as having received the thoughtless Eutyches after the latter’s deposition, and as having anathematized the holy Flavian (who justly deposed Eutyches), and it summoned him to appear for a examination of the allegations against him when he was detected making false excuses in many different ways for his delaying action against the summons. It was later, when he quite freely refused to appear, that they deposed him.

‘How is it, then,’ my friend says, ‘that the same council said it did not condemn Dioscorus on doctrinal grounds, but because he did not comply when he was summoned?’

Well, my friends, Dioscorus really was summoned on suspicion of harboring the evil doctrine of Eutyches, but when he wouldn’t comply and submit the case against himself to trial, he fell under another accusation, that of disobedience, and it’s in connection with the charge of disobedience and the particular penalty prescribed by the canons for it that he happened to be deposed – except he wasn’t released from the charge of heresy in this. If someone is charged with sacrilege, but avoids trial even though he’s urged [to submit to] trial for it, and then this man’s condemned on solid grounds for avoiding trial, he doesn’t deflect the first-order judgment for sacrilege on account of this lighter judgment. On the contrary, the accusation that emerged against him of contesting the proposed trial would strengthen the earlier suspicion contained in the information laid against him. If you say it wasn’t this realization that caused him to avoid trial, but the antipathy of the judges, what he needed to do was to give written, legal, and canonical proof of this antipathy in the form of reasoned refusal, not by running away from cross-examination! That completely undermines his defense against the accusation. Let anyone who feels pain for the man note the character of the assertions he made when he was present. That he received Eutyches is clear, but what excuse did he offer for incorrectly receiving a man who supposed that there was only one nature of Christ, a nature that is just divine and had nothing human about it? That’s what you, the followers of Dioscorus, need to come up with!

‘Certainly’, my friend says, ‘he received [Eutyches] when he repented for these things, and when he later held correct and true opinions.’

How does it happen that you – who are persuaded that, among those at the council, none of those ever suspected in any way of agreeing with Nestorius ever abandoned their superstition – now have become utterly convinced that this man (who isn’t just suspected of impiety, but even confessed his impiety in writing, and was deposed for it as being someone who didn’t abandon his error) learned piety instead? This though he didn’t confess that he abandoned his former error either in the presence of the council or of trustworthy witnesses, or in church, or in any written confession! Furthermore, even if it really is the case that [Dioscorus] received him as being someone who repented, it’s clear that the most religious Flavian deposed him when he earlier was impious about things of which he in the end repented to Dioscorus. How is it that Dioscorus, though he received the one who confessed his former error (a man justly deposed before his repentance), says he himself did exactly the same thing to Flavian that Flavian did to Eutyches, that is, justly deposed him? Either he received this man though he didn’t truly repent, or he himself unjustly counter-deposed the very Flavian who not unjustly deposed Eutyches!

‘But there certainly was a Nestorian prejudice to Flavian, the Bishop of Constantinople,’ my friend says, ‘and as a result everything that took place against Eutyches under him is suspect.’

Yet who that happened upon Flavian’s exposition of faith would agree with this, my friends? Here’s what he says:

‘We proclaim our Lord Jesus Christ, eternally begotten of God the Father before all ages vis-a-vis His divinity, but in latter days the same born of Mary vis-à-vis His humanity for us and for our salvation; perfect God, and the same perfect man by the acquisition of a soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father in respect of divinity, and the same consubstantial with His mother in respect of His humanity. For we confess the same Christ out of two natures after taking flesh from the Holy Virgin and becoming man, one Christ, one Son, one Lord in one hypostasis and in one person, and do not refuse to speak of one nature – incarnate, to be sure, and become man – of the Word of God, on account of our Lord Jesus Christ’s being one and the same out of both. But those who proclaim two sons, or two hypostases, or two persons, but not one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, we anathematize, and judge them to be strangers to the Church. We anathematize first of all the impious Nestorius, along with those who think or speak as he does. Such people will fall away from the adoption as sons announced for those who think aright.’ (Flavian of Constantinople, Letter to Theodosius)

That’s the kind of confession this man makes, the man deposed by Dioscorus, as my friend says, for being a ‘Nestorianizer’! (Testimonies of the Saints)

The heterodox convictions and unlawful customs of the Latins and other heretics we must abhor and turn away from; but whatever is to be found in them to be correct and confirmed by the Canons of the Holy Synods, this we should not abhor or turn away from, lest we unwittingly abhor and turn away from those Canons. (Christian Morality: Introduction xlv-xlvi)

‘There was unquestionably some people in the council [of Chalcedon]’, my friend says, ‘who were found to have formerly belonged to Nestorius.’

By way of granting this point to them as a provisional concession – recognizing the weak point of their argument, we have no wish to further extend our defense – how is it that all of Sodom, and all of Gomorrah, were saved for the sake of only five just men, though the clamor of their lawlessness rose all the way to heaven, whereas on account of two or three individuals among the [Chalcedonians] (even though those individuals kept their impiety a secret when they were with the participants) the entire blessed assembly and the holy members of the priesthood, all six hundred and thirty of them, have been included under the same sentence (as being ungodly in thought on the grounds of not looking closely into the truth) by the God who says when two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them? This is so because, given that the divine tolerance extends not only to them, but also, and even more generously, to all the holy Church of Christ throughout the world, the Church of all peoples and all nations, He intended the doctrines voted on at Chalcedon to endure, not for a season, but as an everlasting tradition, one which we with God recognize at the present. Isn’t any man a prime sinner against the concept of divine providence who denies that the meaning of the faith about Christ’s Incarnation has been proclaimed to the world through the holy councils, yet considers it to have been confirmed in succeeding generations? If you don’t take an acceptable stance towards the holy synod, not even in the light of this understanding of divine providence, but still suspect, on the basis of your long-standing prejudice, that certain of the men at it, acting as individuals and in secret, continued to hold, even then, the false opinion of Nestorius, even though they accommodated themselves to what was said by the majority, then let’s also investigate what justice there is in condemning the synod on that score. Tell us, then: was it impossible for people who at one time didn’t hold correct opinions to the later learn piety instead, and become orthodox? The very action they took proclaims, so to speak, the fact that, when they anathematized Nestorius’ ideas in writing, they were utterly pious at that moment, if not before, for isn’t this the action of approved people? Likewise, was it impossible for certain other participants in the council, who were pious at that moment, to later fall into impiety? Didn’t Paul, the one-time persecutor, later preach the faith he once tried to destroy? Didn’t Judas, who once proclaimed the Lord along with the eleven when He sent them out two by two, later plot against Him? On the contrary, even if, at the very time of the council, there were certain evil-minded people among those present, and they were likewise included among those who acted and spoke rightly, what are the grounds for complaint against the council in that? It’s said, after all, that it’s for God alone to test hearts and minds.

‘But if it had a part that was altogether blameworthy,’ my friend says, ‘then the whole is condemned as spurious too.’

Well then, you have to find fault with the entire threshing-floor because of a single weed, and with the whole troop of the apostles because Judas was numbered among them! If the whole really is to be judged from the part, the reasonable conclusion clearly follows that, since many people from the Council of Ephesus participated in the Council of Chalcedon, the intent of the latter council was all the more anti-Nestorian as a result of their presence! Are you unaware of the fact that, even out of the 318 at Nicea, seventeen subscribed against Arius for fear they’d be deposed, but later on made terrible war against the great Athanasius, yet the entire council isn’t impugned because of it? If you refuse to understand the goodness of the whole from the part of it that’s sound, but attempt to impugn the whole on the basis of the dubious part, then consider the implications: since the latter holy council [of Chalcedon] in its entirety is attacked by you on the basis of one part of it, and since the people from the Council of Ephesus who were found at it are included in the attack on the whole – men who were part of the former council – it follows that the entirety of that former council [of Ephesus] must be attacked along with Chalcedon as an ‘act of zeal for Nestorius’ on the basis of the selected blameworthy part! The Council of Nicea, too, must be set aside as an act of zeal for Arius on account of the remnant of seventeen. Just so that you don’t fail to realize how rash your illegitimate abuse is, you should remember that even holy Symeon, who displayed his personal virtue to us on a pillar, was one of those who subscribed in the precincts of the Council [of Chalcedon] – Symeon, to whom even your patriarch Severus himself offered eulogies and worshipful hymns – as were Baradatus and James the wonder-workers. But why do you set these snares – exaggerated views based on plausible-seeming arguments on the part of people who are pugnaciously eager for assault on piety – for our feet, and hinder those who want to run well from obeying the truth? So as to demonstrate, as may be, before God and men that your secession from the Church isn’t reasonable, look, we set aside every argument we might make against your allegations, and make you the following offer: If you’ll join with us in confessing the tried and true doctrines, saying both ‘one incarnate nature of God the Word’ and that there are two natures of Christ united in His one hypostasis, and if you also don’t repudiate the Council, and Leo, and ourselves, then we, for our part, anathematize even an angel from heaven sooner than we do you, if he doesn’t think and speak and write likewise; we praise and accept Severus, Dioscorus, Timothy, and you, and anyone at all who shares such views; we add nothing to this, but we leave the judgment on those who think in this way, or who speak in one way and think in another, to God, the judge of all. (Testimonies of the Saints)

To a certain extent, there is a similarity between Monophysitism and Augustinianism — the human is pushed into the background and, as it were, suppressed by the Divine. What St. Augustine said about the boundless activity of grace refers in Monophysite doctrine to the God-Man “synthesis.” In this regard one could speak of the “potential assimilation” of humanity by the Divinity of the Logos even in Severus’ system. In Severus’ thought this is proclaimed in his muddled and forced doctrine of “unified God-Man activity” — this expression is taken from Dionysius the Areopagite. The actor is always unified — the Logos. Therefore, the activity — “energy” — is unified too. But together with this, it is complex as well, complex in its manifestations — τα αποτελέσματα, in conformity with the complexity of the acting nature or subject. A single action is manifested dually and the same is true for will or volition. In other words, Divine activity is refracted and, as it were, takes refuge in the “natural qualities” of the humanity received by the Logos. We must remember that Severus here touched upon a difficulty which was not resolved in the Orthodox theology of his time. Even with Orthodox theologians the concept of divinization or theosis sometimes suggested the boundless influence of Divinity. However, for Severus the difficulty proved insurmountable, especially because of the clumsiness and inflexibility of the “Monophysite” language and also because in his reflections he always started from the Divinity of the Logos and not from the Person of the God-Man. Formally speaking, this was the path trod by St. Cyril but in essence this led to the idea of human passivity — one could even say the non-freedom of the God-Man. These biases of thought proclaim the indistinctness of Christological vision. To these conservative Monophysites the human in Christ seemed still too transfigured — not qualitatively, of course, not physically, but potentially or virtually. In any event, it did not seem to be acting freely and the Divine does not manifest itself in the freedom of the human. What is taking place here is partly simple unspokenness, and in Severus’ time Orthodox theologians had also not yet revealed the doctrine of Christ’s human freedom — more accurately, the freedom of the “human” in Christ — with sufficient clarity and fullness. However, Severus simply did not pose the question of freedom and this, of course, was no accident. Given his premises, the very question had to have seemed “Nestorian” — concealed by the assumption of the “second subject.”

The orthodox answer, as given by St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662), presupposes distinguishing between “nature” and “hypostasis” — not only is “man” (“hypostasis”) free but also the “human” as such — the very “nature” — in all its “natural qualities,” in all and in each. An acknowledgement of this sort can in no way be fit into the framework of the Monophysite — much less the “diplophysite” — doctrine. Severus’ system was the theology of the “Monophysite” majority. It could be called conservative Monophysitism. But the history of Monophysitism is a history of constant dissension and division. It is not so important that from time to time we meet under the title “Monophysite” individual groups comprised of people who were not quite followers of Eutyches, not quite new Docetists who spoke of the “transformation” or the “fusion of natures,” who denied the consubstantiality of humanity in Christ, or who talked about the “heavenly” origin and nature of Christ’s body. These individual heretical outbursts are evidence only of the general intellectual ferment and agitation. Much more important are those divisions and disputes which arise in the basic course of the Monophysite movement. These reveal its internal logic, its driving motives, especially Severus’ dispute with Julian of Halicarnassus.

It is necessary to mention again that for orthodox theology also this was an unanswered question. For the Monophysites, however, it was also unanswerable. In other words, within the limits of Monophysite premises it was answerable only by admitting the passive assimilation of the human by the Divine. All these disputes reveal the indistinctness and vagueness of a religious vision damaged by anthropological quietism. There is an inner duality in the Monophysite movement, a bifurcation of emotion and thought. One could say that Monophysite theology was more orthodox than their ideals or, to put it differently, that the theologians in Monophysitism were more orthodox than most of the believers but that the theologians were prevented from attaining final clarity by the unfortunate “Monophysite” language. Therefore, Monophysitism becomes “more orthodox” in a strange and unexpected way precisely when the religious wave has receded and theology is cooling down to scholasticism. It is at this time that Monophysite closeness to St. Cyril seems so obvious, for this is closeness in word, not in spirit. The source of Monophysitism is not to be found in dogmatic formulas but in religious passion. All the pathos of Monophysitism lies in the self-basement of man, in an acute need to overcome the human as such and hence the instinctive striving to distinguish the God-Man from man more sharply even in his humanity. This striving can be claimed in various forms and with varying force, depending on how lucid and how restrained is this burning thirst for human self-basement which erupts from the dark depths of the subconscious. It is not accidental that Monophysitism was so closely connected with ascetic fanaticism, with ascetic self-torture and emotional violence. Nor is it an accident that Origenistic motifs of a universal apokatastasis were once again revived in Monophysite circles. In this regard the lone image of the Syrian mystic Stephen Bar-Sudhaile and his doctrine about universal restoration and a final “consubstantiality” of all creatures with God is particularly significant. Neoplatonic mysticism is paradoxically crossed with eastern fatalism. An apotheosis of self-abasement — such is the paradox of Monophysitism, and only through these psychological predispositions can one understand the tragic history of Monophysitism. The belated epilogue to the Monophysite movement will be the tragic Monothelite controversy. (The Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth to Eighth Century, Chap. 2: The Spirit of Monophysitism)

The following comes from the time of St. Cyril’s condemnation of Nestorius; we will show, both from his synodal letter to the Orientals and his writings to Eulogius, that even after Nestorius’ condemnation his teaching on the confession concerning the two natures in Christ is the same, and he receives those who are the same mind. He says in his letter to Eulogius:

“There are some who receive the definition of faith drawn up by the Orientals and say; ‘why does the Alexandrian uphold and commend those who say two natures? For those who are of the opinion of Nestorius say that they, too, believe this.’ But those [who say this] are being carried away by things they don’t accurately understand. We must say this to those who condemn us: it is not necessary to flee from, or to avoid everything heretics say, for they confess many things we confess. Whenever the Arians say that the Father is the Creator and Lord of all things, will we therefore no longer hold this confession? The same is true in the case of Nestorius; although he said that there are two natures and understood that the flesh and the Divine Logos are different — for the nature of the Logos is different from the nature of the flesh — yet he did not confess with us the union.”

Notice the father clearly teaches us that Nestorius was not condemned because he said two natures, but because he denied the hyspostatic union of the two natures, thereby producing two sons. And so, wishing to put an end to such impiety, St. Cyril said, “One nature of the Son,” and he added the term “incarnate” to indicate that the nature of the divinity is one [nature], and the nature of the flesh is another, out of which the Christ is one, the same Son of God and Son of Man, and there are not two Christs or two Sons. And the holy Church of God rightly receives all the words spoken by St. Cyril, including the formula, “One nature of God the Word incarnate,” since it indicates that the nature of the flesh is another, out of which the one single Christ is produced. (Against the Monophysites)

For the two natures were united with each other without change or alteration, neither the divine nature departing from its native simplicity, nor yet the human being either changed into the nature of God or reduced to non-existence, nor one compound nature being produced out of the two. For the compound nature cannot be of the same essence as either of the natures out of which it is compounded, as made one thing out of others: for example, the body is composed of the four elements, but is not of the same essence as fire or air, or water or earth, nor does it keep these names. If, therefore, after the union, Christ’s nature was, as the heretics hold, a compound unity, He had changed from a simple into a compound nature , and is not of the same essence as the Father Whose nature is simple, nor as the mother, who is not a compound of divinity and humanity. Nor will He then be in divinity and humanity: nor will He be called either God or Man, but simply Christ: and the word Christ will be the name not of the subsistence, but of what in their view is the one nature.

We, however, do not give it as our view that Christ’s nature is compound, nor yet that He is one thing made of other things and differing from them as man is made of soul and body, or as the body is made of the four elements, but hold that, though He is constituted of these different parts He is yet the same. For we confess that He alike in His divinity and in His humanity both is and is said to be perfect God, the same Being, and that He consists of two natures, and exists in two natures. Further, by the word Christ we understand the name of the subsistence, not in the sense of one kind, but as signifying the existence of two natures. For in His own person He anointed Himself; as God anointing His body with His own divinity, and as Man being anointed. For He is Himself both God and Man. And the anointing is the divinity of His humanity. For if Christ, being of one compound nature, is of like essence to the Father, then the Father also must be compound and of like essence with the flesh, which is absurd and extremely blasphemous.

How, indeed, could one and the same nature come to embrace opposing and essential differences? For how is it possible that the same nature should be at once created and uncreated, mortal and immortal, circumscribed and uncircumscribed?

But if those who declare that Christ has only one nature should say also that that nature is a simple one, they must admit either that He is God pure and simple, and thus reduce the incarnation to a mere pretence, or that He is only man, according to Nestorius. And how then about His being perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity? And when can Christ be said to be of two natures, if they hold that He is of one composite nature after the union? For it is surely clear to every one that before the union Christ’s nature was one.

But this is what leads the heretics astray, viz., that they look upon nature and subsistence as the same thing. For when we speak of the nature of men as one , observe that in saying this we are not looking to the question of soul and body. For when we compare together the soul and the body it cannot be said that they are of one nature. But since there are very many subsistences of men, and yet all have the same kind of nature : for all are composed of soul and body, and all have part in the nature of the soul, and possess the essence of the body, and the common form: we speak of the one nature of these very many and different subsistences; while each subsistence, to wit, has two natures, and fulfils itself in two natures, namely, soul and body.

But a common form cannot be admitted in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ. For neither was there ever, nor is there, nor will there ever be another Christ constituted of deity and humanity, and existing in deity and humanity at once perfect God and perfect man. And thus in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ we cannot speak of one nature made up of divinity and humanity, as we do in the case of the individual made up of soul and body. For in the latter case we have to do with an individual, but Christ is not an individual. For there is no predicable form of Christlihood, so to speak, that He possesses. And therefore we hold that there has been a union of two perfect natures, one divine and one human; not with disorder or confusion, or intermixture , or commingling, as is said by the God-accursed Dioscorus and by Eutyches and Severus, and all that impious company: and not in a personal or relative manner, or as a matter of dignity or agreement in will, or equality in honour, or identity in name, or good pleasure, as Nestorius, hated of God, said, and Diodorus and Theodorus of Mopsuestia, and their diabolical tribe: but by synthesis; that is, in subsistence, without change or confusion or alteration or difference or separation, and we confess that in two perfect natures there is but one subsistence of the Son of God incarnate ; holding that there is one and the same subsistence belonging to His divinity and His humanity, and granting that the two natures are preserved in Him after the union, but we do not hold that each is separate and by itself, but that they are united to each other in one compound subsistence. For we look upon the union as essential, that is, as true and not imaginary. We say that it is essential , moreover, not in the sense of two natures resulting in one compound nature, but in the sense of a true union of them in one compound subsistence of the Son of God, and we hold that their essential difference is preserved. For the created remains created, and the uncreated, uncreated: the mortal remains mortal; the immortal, immortal: the circumscribed, circumscribed: the uncircumscribed, uncircumscribed: the visible, visible: the invisible, invisible. The one part is all glorious with wonders: while the other is the victim of insults.

Moreover, the Word appropriates to Himself the attributes of humanity: for all that pertains to His holy flesh is His: and He imparts to the flesh His own attributes by way of communication in virtue of the interpenetration of the parts one with another, and the oneness according to subsistence, and inasmuch as He Who lived and acted both as God and as man, taking to Himself either form and holding intercourse with the other form, was one and the same. Hence it is that the Lord of Glory is said to have been crucified 1 Cor. 2:8, although His divine nature never endured the Cross, and that the Son of Man is allowed to have been in heaven before the Passion, as the Lord Himself said. Jn. 3:13 For the Lord of Glory is one and the same with Him Who is in nature and in truth the Son of Man, that is, Who became man, and both His wonders and His sufferings are known to us, although His wonders were worked in His divine capacity, and His sufferings endured as man. For we know that, just as is His one subsistence, so is the essential difference of the nature preserved. For how could difference be preserved if the very things that differ from one another are not preserved? For difference is the difference between things that differ. In so far as Christ’s natures differ from one another, that is, in the matter of essence, we hold that Christ unites in Himself two extremes: in respect of His divinity He is connected with the Father and the Spirit, while in respect of His humanity He is connected with His mother and all mankind. And in so far as His natures are united, we hold that He differs from the Father and the Spirit on the one hand, and from the mother and the rest of mankind on the other. For the natures are united in His subsistence, having one compound subsistence, in which He differs from the Father and the Spirit, and also from the mother and us.

Union, then, is one thing, and incarnation is something quite different. For union signifies only the conjunction, but not at all that with which union is effected. But incarnation (which is just the same as if one said the putting on of man’s nature) signifies that the conjunction is with flesh, that is to say, with man, just as the heating of iron implies its union with fire. Indeed, the blessed Cyril himself, when he is interpreting the phrase, one nature of God the Word Incarnate, says in the second epistle to Sucensus, For if we simply said ‘the one nature of the Word’ and then were silent, and did not add the word ‘incarnate,’ but, so to speak, quite excluded the dispensation , there would be some plausibility in the question they feign to ask, ‘If one nature is the whole, what becomes of the perfection in humanity, or how has the essence like us come to exist.’ But inasmuch as the perfection in humanity and the disclosure of the essence like us are conveyed in the word ‘incarnate,’ they must cease from relying on a mere straw. Here, then, he placed the nature of the Word over nature itself. For if He had received nature instead of subsistence, it would not have been absurd to have omitted the incarnate. For when we say simply one subsistence of God the Word, we do not err. In like manner, also, Leontius the Byzantine considered this phrase to refer to nature, and not to subsistence. But in the Defence which he wrote in reply to the attacks that Theodoret made on the second anathema, the blessed Cyril says this: The nature of the Word, that is, the subsistence, which is the Word itself. So that the nature of the Word means neither the subsistence alone, nor the common nature of the subsistence, but the common nature viewed as a whole in the subsistence of the Word.

Confessing, then, the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, to be perfect God and perfect man, we hold that the same has all the attributes of the Father save that of being ingenerate, and all the attributes of the first Adam, save only his sin, these attributes being body and the intelligent and rational soul; and further that He has, corresponding to the two natures, the two sets of natural qualities belonging to the two natures: two natural volitions, one divine and one human, two natural energies, one divine and one human, two natural free-wills, one divine and one human, and two kinds of wisdom and knowledge, one divine and one human. For being of like essence with God and the Father, He wills and energises freely as God, and being also of like essence with us He likewise wills and energises freely as man. For His are the miracles and His also are the passive states. (An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith Bk. 3.3, 11 & 13)

We also accept and receive cordially with the same embrace all the godly writings, full of divine wisdom, of the inspired Cyril, in that they are full of all correctness and destroy every impiety of the heretics, especially the two synodical letters against Nestorius, hateful to God and pursued by God, both the second and third to which were attached the Twelve Chapters, which burnt up the entire perversity of Nestorius with the coals of the holy Apostles of equal number. Together with these I accept also the synodical letter written to the most holy leaders of the East, in which he called their utterances sacred and confirmed peace with them. Counted in with these we assert that the letters of the eastern Fathers are indissoluble because they were accepted by the godly Cyril himself, and were attested by him in indisputable terms as orthodox.

Together with those sacred writings of the all-wise Cyril, I likewise accept as being sacred and of equal honor, and the mother of the same orthodoxy, also the God-given and divinely inspired letter of the great and illustrious Leo of godly mind, of the most holy church of the Romans, or rather the luminary of all under the sun, which he wrote, clearly moved by the divine Spirit, to Flavian, the famous leader of the queen of cities, against the perverse Eutyches and Nestorius, hateful to God and deranged. Indeed I call and define this [letter] as ‘the pillar of orthodoxy’, following those holy Fathers who well defined it this way, as thoroughly teaching us every right belief, while destroying every heretical wrong belief, and driving it out of the halls of holy catholic church, guarded by God. With this divinely conceived epistle, and writing I also attach myself to all his letters and teachings as if they issued from the mouth of the chief Peter, and I kiss and cleave to them and embrace them with all my soul.

As I have said previously, I accept these five sacred and divine councils of the blessed Fathers and all the writings of the all-wise Cyril, and especially those composed against the madness of Nestorius, and the epistle of the eastern leaders which was written to the most godly Cyril himself and which he attested as orthodox. And [I accept] what Leo, the most holy shepherd of the most holy church of the Romans, wrote, and especially what he composed against the abomination of Eutyches and Nestorius. I recognize the latter as the definitions of Peter, the former those of Mark. (Synodical Letter 2.5.5, Sophronius of Jerusalem and Seventh-Century Heresy pp. 131-135)

And (if I am to speak concisely) the Saviour is made of elements which are distinct from one another (for the invisible is not the same with the visible, nor the timeless with that which is subject to time), yet He is not two Persons. God forbid! For both natures are one by the combination, the Deity being made Man, and the Manhood deified or however one should express it. And I say different Elements, because it is the reverse of what is the case in the Trinity; for There we acknowledge different Persons so as not to confound the persons; but not different Elements, for the Three are One and the same in Godhead.

Keep then the whole man, and mingle Godhead therewith, that you may benefit me in my completeness. But, [Apollinaris] asserts, “He could not contain Two perfect Natures.” Not if you only look at Him in a bodily fashion. For a bushel measure will not hold two bushels, nor will the space of one body hold two or more bodies. But if you will look at what is mental and incorporeal, remember that I in my one personality can contain soul and reason and mind and the Holy Spirit; and before me this world, by which I mean the system of things visible and invisible, contained Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For such is the nature of intellectual Existences, that they can mingle with one another and with bodies, in corporeally and invisibly. For many sounds are comprehended by one ear; and the eyes of many are occupied by the same visible objects, and the smell by odours; nor are the senses narrowed by each other, or crowded out, nor the objects of sense diminished by the multitude of the perceptions. But where is there mind of man or angel so perfect in comparison of the Godhead that the presence of the greater must crowd out the other? The light is nothing compared with the sun, nor a little damp compared with a river, that we must first do away with the lesser, and take the light from a house, or the moisture from the earth, to enable it to contain the greater and more perfect. (Epistle 101: To Cledonius)

What lower region has vomited the statement that the Body born of Mary is coessential with the Godhead of the Word? Or that the Word has been changed into flesh, bones, hair, and the whole body, and altered from its own nature? Or who ever heard in a Church, or even from Christians, that the Lord wore a body putatively, not in nature; or who ever went so far in impiety as to say and hold, that this Godhead, which is coessential with the Father, was circumcised and became imperfect instead of perfect; and that what hung upon the tree was not the body, but the very creative Essence and Wisdom? Or who that hears that the Word transformed for Himself a passible body, not of Mary, but of His own Essence, could call him who said this a Christian? Or who devised this abominable impiety, for it to enter even his imagination , and for him to say that to pronounce the Lord’s Body to be of Mary is to hold a Tetrad instead of a Triad in the Godhead? Those who think thus, saying that the Body of the Saviour which He put on from Mary, is of the Essence of the Triad. Or whence again have certain vomited an impiety as great as those already mentioned; saying namely, that the body is not newer than the Godhead of the Word, but was coeternal with it always, since it was compounded of the Essence of Wisdom. Or how did men called Christians venture even to doubt whether the Lord, Who proceeded from Mary, while Son of God by Essence and Nature, is of the seed of David according to the flesh Rom. 1:3, and of the flesh of the Holy Mary? Or who have been so venturesome as to say that Christ Who suffered in the flesh and was crucified is not Lord, Saviour, God, and Son of the Father ? Or how can they wish to be called Christians who say that the Word has descended upon a holy man as upon one of the prophets, and has not Himself become man, taking the body from Mary; but that Christ is one person, while the Word of God, Who before Mary and before the ages was Son of the Father, is another? Or how can they be Christians who say that the Son is one, and the Word of God another?

But I marvel that your piety suffered it, and that you did not stop those who said such things, and propound to them the right faith, so that upon hearing it they might hold their peace, or if they opposed it might be counted as heretics. For the statements are not fit for Christians to make or to hear, on the contrary they are in every way alien from the Apostolic teaching.

Whence did it occur to you, sirs, to say that the Body is of one Essence with the Godhead of the Word? For it is well to begin at this point, in order that by showing this opinion to be unsound, all the others too may be proved to be the same. Now from the divine Scriptures we discover nothing of the kind. For they say that God came in a human body. But the fathers who also assembled at Nicæa say that, not the body, but the Son Himself is coessential with the Father, and that while He is of the Essence of the Father, the body, as they admitted according to the Scriptures, is of Mary. Either then deny the Synod of Nicæa, and as heretics bring in your doctrine from the side; or, if you wish to be children of the fathers, do not hold the contrary of what they wrote. For here again you may see how monstrous it is: If the Word is coessential with the body which is of earthly nature, while the Word is, by your own confession, coessential with the Father, it will follow that even the Father Himself is coessential with the body produced from the earth. (Letter 59, To Epicetus)

St. Cyril of Alexandria ca. 376-444

The charge therefore is of equal force, whether one say that the Word of God have been turned into the nature of body or whether that the flesh again is transformed into consubstantiality with God. It is fit therefore that we keep away from both one and other, seeing that it is not without peril to chuse to think beside what one ought to think.

For come let us with acute eye of the understanding investigate the idea of the confusers. They say that His Flesh has been changed (I know not how) into consubstantiality with God the Word. Why? or what is it that brings it thereto? For of its own self it has not the impulse that would bring it thereto, and of its natural motions to admit such desires is foreign to it. It remains then to say this, that it was brought hereto by the will of God the Word. Did He then cast away the Economy which He clearly deemed worthy of all account by reason of His inherent Clemency and the Pleasure of His Father?

If He have ceased from being as we, i.e. man, together with being also above us Divinely, the foundation of our salvation has been shaken, we unawares returned (it seems) to have to be again lorded over by death and sins. For as when the nethermost foundations of house (it may be) or wall have been shaken, the superincumbent parts too will surely subside with them: thus if the Economy with flesh of the Only-Begotten be not firm, our condition surely has tottered with it and grown weak at last; and how, we will say. For if they say that the Flesh of the Word have been changed into the Nature of the Godhead, there is every need to conceive that He has otherwise departed from His will to be son of man: then how does the all-wise Paul say, For there is one God, One Mediator too of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus Who gave Himself a ransom for us? For He mediates as being the Same, God alike and Man, reconciling us to God the Father through Himself and in Him and conjoining as it were unto union things by their own nature parted unto generic difference by a boundless parting, yet in Christ did they come together unto an union without confusion and that cannot be plucked asunder: for He has been connected Divinely with the Father, and He was connected with us too humanly. Thus is the Man Christ Jesus conceived to be and is our Mediator. But if the Flesh has been really (as he says) cast away by Him, He is gone surely away from mediating between us and His own Father: how therefore do we yet approach Him? who any longer brings us or mediates? For the Divine Paul said that the Mediator is Man: we remember Christ also Himself saying, No man cometh to the Father except through Me. Idle talk therefore and words full of distraction are the inventions of the Synousiasts.

If, His Flesh changed into the Nature of the Godhead, He ceased to be Son of man too, clear would it be to every one henceforth that we too have lost the boast of sonship, as no longer having a First-born among many brethren.

But haply they will say that the Flesh did not wholly depart from being what it was, but that it was as it were immingled with God the Word unto a natural oneness. And what do we say to this? First of all, sirs, there is full much difficulty, the reasoning hereon will be weak if ye decide to retain to the Nature of the Word Its unchangeable Being and unalterable Existence (for in no wise will it change unto what it was not): either when it has suffered this It has been shaken from Its God-befitting stability and from the settledness that is inherent in it by Nature, or howsoever one calls it: but I think that it is wise that we should in no wise be able to conceive that ought of things that are could abide in the Nature of the Godhead: for this too is likewise impossible.

He has fasted, He hungered, He waxed weary from long wayfaring, yet more He was crucified and died: He conceded that He should suffer these things, not to the Nature of the Godhead (for the Divine and Supreme Nature is conceived of as beyond suffering) but rather to His own Flesh. But when He rose again having trampled on Death and trans-elemented the nature of man in Himself unto incorruption and life: He is at length seen wholly without share in fleshly infirmity. Therefore with reason does the minister of His mysteries say that no more is He known after the flesh, i. e. in fleshly weakness.

No one whatever. Let them therefore, speaking out of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord, as it is written, be ashamed. For WE, whose care is orthodoxy and who makest a special aim zealously to follow the right words of the holy Fathers, not the unbridled mouth and empty-speakings void of understanding of some, will not be minded otherwise than we ought to be minded, but ever going the straight way of the truth and having our mind filled with the holy Scriptures we both say that the Flesh of our LORD was ensouled with reasonable soul and believe that it is Divine and Spotless and glorified and moreover both life-giving and sanctifying, inasmuch as it became the own Flesh of the Word out of God the Father and affirm that it is not (as some have thought fit to think) of a son other than He, nor yet that it is changed into the Nature of Godhead. (Against the Synousiasts)

[I]f they think there is any doubt about our teaching, let them at least not reject the writings of such holy priests as Athanasius, Theophilus and Cyril of Alexandria, with whom our statement of the Faith so completely harmonizes that any one who professes consent to them disagrees in nothing with us. (Letter 117.3)

Father Silouan’s attitude towards those who differed from him was characterized by a sincere desire to see what was good in them, and not to offend them in anything they held sacred. He always remained himself; he was utterly convinced that ‘salvation lies in Christ-like humility’, and by virtue of this humility he strove with his whole soul to interpret every man at his best. He found his way to the heart of everyone — to his capacity for loving Christ.

I remember a conversation he had with a certain Archmandrite who was engaged in a missionary work. This Archmandrite thought highly of the Staretz and many a time went to see him during his visit to the Holy Mountain. The Staretz asked him what sort of sermons he preached to people. The Archimandrite, who was still young and inexperienced, gesticulated with his hands and swayed his whole body, and replied excitedly,

‘I tell them, Your faith is all wrong, perverted. There is nothing right, and if you don’t repent, there will be no salvation for you.’

The Staretz heard him out, then asked, ‘Tell me, Father Archimandrite, do they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the true God?

‘Yes, that they do believe.’

‘And do they revere the Mother of God?’

‘Yes, but they are not taught properly about her.’

‘And what of the Saints?’

‘Yes, they honor them but since they have fallen away from the Church, what saints can they have?’

‘Do they celebrate the Divine Office in their churches? Do they read the Gospels?’

‘Yes, they do have churches and services but if you were to compare their services with ours — how cold and lifeless theirs are!’

‘Father Archimandrite, people feel in their souls when they are doing the proper thing, believing in Jesus Christ, revering the Mother of God and the Saints, whom they call upon in prayer, so if you condemn their faith they will not listen to you… But if you were to confirm that they were doing well to believe in God and honor the Mother of God and the Saints; that they are right to go to church, and say their prayers at home, read the Divine word, and so on; and then gently point out their mistakes and show them what they ought to amend, then they would listen to you, and the Lord would rejoice over them. And this way by God’s mercy we shall all find salvation…God is love, and therefore the preaching of His word must always proceed from love. Then both preacher and listener will profit. But if you do nothing but condemn, the soul of the people will not heed you, and no good will come of it.’ (St. Silouan the Athonite by Archimandrite Sophrony pp. 63-65)

People cite Vladyka John [Maximovitch]… To that which has been said above concerning him, I will add yet the following. Two days ago I was conversing about Vladyka John with a man whom Vladyka knew while still in Yugoslavia. When war broke out in the 1940s, and then during the post-war upheavals, this man was forced, “in the struggle for existence”, to roam quite a bit about this wide world. When, after the passage of several years, he again met with Vladyka, he began to recount to him concerning his “tribulations”. In particular, he said: “For three years I had to live where there was no Orthodox church, and I went to the Copts.” “What? You went to the Copts?” inquired Vladyka John. The man, having cringed, as he himself related, at Vladyka’s severe tone, replied: “Yes, I did, but I didn’t attend their liturgies”. “But you did attend the vigils?” “I did, Vladyka.” “But did you repent of it?” “No, but then, I didn’t pray there, I was only present.” “Well, the next time you go to confession, without fail repent of the fact that you were present at the services of the heretics,” concluded Vladyka John. (Metropolitan Philaret [Voznesensky]: Two Letters to Archbishop Averky)

Blessed Elder Paisios considered the anti-Chalcedonians (that is, the Monophysites) — along with the other heretics and those of other religions — to be creatures of God and our brothers according to the flesh, in terms of our common descent from Adam; but he didn’t consider them childern of God and our brothers according to the Spirit, characterizations he applied only to Orthodox Christians. Regarding the Monophysite’s sympathizers and their fervent supporters among the Orthodox, he observed, “They don’t say that the Monophysites didn’t understand the Holy Fathers — they say that the Holy Fathers did not understand them. In other words, they talk as if they are right and and the fathers misunderstood them”. He considered proposals to erase from the liturgical books statements identifying Dioscorus and Severus as heretics to be a blasphemy against the holy fathers. He said, “So many divinely enlightened holy fathers who were there at the time didn’t understand them, took them the wrong way, and now we come along after so many centuries to correct the holy fathers? And they don’t take the miracle of Saint Euphemia into account? Did she misunderstand the heretics’ tome too? (Hieromonk Isaac: Elder Paisios of Mount Athos; 2012 For the English Language by the Holy Monastery of St. Arsenios the Cappadocian , pp. 659-660)

…How is it possible to accept as correct that which has now been understood by twenty-one representatives of the Patriarchates and Autocephalous Churches – that is, that for fifteen hundred years the Orthodox and Monophysites had the same Christological Faith – when it is a fact that four Ecumenical Councils condemned the latter as heretical? Is it possible that the Holy Fathers who took part in them were mistaken, and were unjust towards the Monophysites? Was there not to be found even one of the 630 Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, of the 165 Fathers of the Fifth, of the 227 of the Sixth, or of the 367 of the Seventh, to understand this which the ecumenist Orthodox of Chambésy have now understood – that is, that the Monophysites are not heretics? So it is that 1,389 Holy Fathers are in error, and the twenty-one representatives of the innovative Orthodox are right? Are we to believe that the Holy Spirit did not enlighten the Holy Fathers? Are we to deny the divine inspiration of the Holy Councils? Heretical and blasphemous! Even more boldly, are we to assert that St. Euphemia, who sealed with a miracle the Definition of Faith of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, misunderstood the ‘Orthodoxy’ of the Monophysites because she did not understand the language? A fearsome thing! (*)(Archbishop Chrysostom Kiousis, Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece excerpted from Vladimir Moss, New Zion in Babylon Part 6 pg. 29)

(*) The Council of Chalcedon sat in the cathedral consecrated in the name of the Great-martyr St. Euphemia (+ ca. 307 ad).Present at the council were 630 representatives from all the local Christian Churches. Both the Monophysite and Orthodox parties were well-represented at the council, so the meetings were quite contentious, and no decisive consensus could be reached. Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople suggested that the council submit the decision to the Holy Spirit, acting through Saint Euphemia.

Both parties wrote a confession of their faith and placed them in the tomb of the saint Euphemia which was sealed in the presence of the emperor Marcian (450-457), who placed the imperial seal on it and set a guard to watch over it for three days. During these days both sides fasted and prayed. After three days the tomb was opened and the scroll with the Orthodox confession was seen in the right hand of St Euphemia while the scroll of the Monophysites lay at her feet.

This miracle is attested by a letter sent by the council to Pope St. Leo the Great: For it was God who worked, and the triumphant Euphemia who crowned the meeting as for a bridal , and who, taking our definition of the Faith as her own confession, presented it to her Bridegroom by our most religious Emperor and Christ-loving Empress, appeasing all the tumult of opponents and establishing our confession of the Truth as acceptable to Him, and with hand and tongue setting her seal to the votes of us all in proclamation thereof. (Letter 98.3)

St. Sophronius of Jerusalem also attests to St. Euphemia’s support of Chalcedon in his Synodical Letter ca. 634 a.d.: And the fourth gathering, full of divine wisdom, after the three only in time, was assembled with 639 Fathers, worthy of praise and torch-bearers of the faith. It held its godly convocation by God in Chalcedon and the martyr Euphemia sharing its labors (the one who also up to the present fights on behalf of their definition of faith and speaks unceasingly and mightily about their far-famed and very great assembly). It dispatched that unhallowed pair, I mean Eutyches and Dioscorus, and blocked up their malevolence, hostile to God, which flowed as if from the spring of Apollinaris… (Synodical Letter 2.5.1)

In reality there is not a Father and Saint of the Church throughout the age-long Tradition of the fifteen centuries, from the Fourth Ecumenical Synod until today, who would believe and teach that we do not have differences in faith with the Non-Chalcedonians and that they are essentially Orthodox as we are. On the contrary, there are many great Saints of our Church, after the Synod of Chalcedon, who set forth the depth and the breadth, in any case the extent, of the heresy of the Non-Chalcedonians. Among them are colossi and giants of theology, pillars of Orthodoxy, whose multifarious wisdom, apart from the illumination of the Holy Spirit, is astonishing and undeniable, so much superior to the wisdom of those conducting the dialogue today, that it appears risible to argue that they did not understand the reasoning and the positions of the Non-Chalcedonians and that we understand them better today. (Protopresbyter Theodore Zisis, Professor at the University of Thessaloniki: St. John of Damascus and the ‘Orthodoxy’ of the Non-Chalcedonians)

More than anything else, the spirit of the system distinguishes the Monophysites from St. Cyril. It was not at all easy to reshape Cyril’s inspired doctrine into a logical system, and the terminology made this problem more difficult. Hardest of all was intelligibly defining the form and character of the human “traits” in the God-Man synthesis. The followers of Severus could not speak of Christ’s humanity as a “nature.” It broke down into a system of traits, for the doctrine of the Logos “taking” humanity was still not developed fully by Monophysitism into the idea of “inter-hypostasisness.” The Monophysites usually spoke of the Logos’ humanity as oikonomia. It is not without foundation that the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon detected here a subtle taste of original Docetism. Certainly this is not the Docetism of the ancient Gnostics at all, nor is it Apollinarianism. However, to the followers of Severus the “human” in Christ was not entirely human, for it was not active, was not “self-motivated.” In the contemplation of the Monophysites the human in Christ was like a passive object of Divine influence. Divinization or theosis seems to be a unilateral act of Divinity without sufficiently taking into count the synergism of human freedom, the assumption of which in no way supposes a “second subject.” In their religious experiment the element of freedom in general was not sufficiently pronounced and this could be called anthropological minimalism. (Fr. Georges Florovsky: The Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth Through Eighth Centuries)

The “monophysite” position consisted essentially in a sort of “Cyrillian fundamentalism” which allowed no compromise at all. The Chalcedonian orthodox camp was making major terminological concessions and clarifications: the antichalcedonians were making none. Even the great Severus of Antioch, who saw the dangers of unabashed Monophysitism and understood the importance of affirming the full reality of Christ’s manhood, stopped short from accepting “two natures after the union”. Several individual leaders of Monophysitism eventually accepted Chalcedon, but they were disavowed by their flocks.

Essentially a conservative or “fundamentalist” schism, Monophysitism rejected the “catholic” dimension of Chalcedon. Indeed, in the view of Chalcedonian and Neo-Chalcedonian orthodoxy, the catholicity of the Church requires that the one Truth be expressed in different terminologies; that some legitimacy be granted not only to Alexandrian expressions of salvation in Christ, but also to the Antiochian and the Western Latin tradition found in the Tome of Leo (provided there was agreement in substance); that a clearly “diphysite” christology was necessary to refute Eutychianism, and that it did not amount to a disavowal of St. Cyril. By standing for their theology, their formulas only, the Monophysites were moving in the direction of deliberate and exclusive sectarianism. This trend resulted in further grouping and splits, each group affirming its own exclusivity, rejecting other groups by always remaining opposed to Chalcedonian unity…In Egypt alone, by the end of the sixth century, the anti-chalcedonian opposition was split into twenty groups, each claiming canonical and doctrinal purity, and, in many cases, counting adepts in Syria, Arabia and Persia (Fr. John Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Christian East After Justinian, pp. 252-253)

Strictly speaking, it is not fair to characterize the anti-Chalcedonians as Monophysites. Most of them were clearly far from being at one with Eutyches. However, it seems doubtful that their Monophysitism was totally verbal and that they were absolutely clear of monophysitizing tendencies and traits. At any rate, it is difficult to be other than negative in our judgment of the Christology of Severus and the anti-Chalcedonians overall. Their Christology seems to have been one-sided, emphasizing the unity of Christ and failing to safeguard equally well the distinction between the divine and human elements in him. Their rejection of the Chalcedonian distinction between person/hypostasis and nature/essence, related as it was to a certain interpretation of Cyril and a kind of Cyrillian fundamentalism, kept them from taking advantage of the Council’s terminological achievements, which, by comparison with the language of Cyril, unquestionably marked a step forward. As Grillmeier has observed, the fact that the anti-Chalcedonians sought unity and distinction on the same level, the level of nature, inevitably led them into a contradiction, which seems to be relevant to the fact that in their various camp various Trinitarian and Christological heresies evolved together with internal schisms, fractions, and splinter groups. Their prejudice against the number two is as suspicious as their relegation of the humanity of Christ to a set of qualities of the Logos. Their unwavering opposition to Chalcedon and it’s post-Chalcedonian exponents indicates that in all probability their Christology differed from theirs. Finally, their monothelitism and monoenergism exerted a negative influence on those theologians of the official Church who, by trying to bridge the gap between the Church and the anti-Chalcedonians, ended up by adopting those positions that led to the outburst of the monothelite controversy of the seventh century. (Fr. Demetrius Bathrellos: The Byzantine Christ/ Person, Nature and Will in the Christology of St. Maximus the Confessor, pg. 33-34)

The condemnation of Eutychius by the Non-Chalcedonians does not constitute in our view a guarantee of their Orthodoxy. They also must condemn the moderate monophysitism of Severos and Dioscoros. It is a very delicate point but nevertheless a fundamental one. Perhaps on this delicate point lies our difference with today’s Non-Chalcedonians. Because of this difference they must explicitly confess the term of the 4th Ecumenical Synod. (Suggestions of a Committee from the Sacred Community of the Holy Mountain Athos – Concerning the Dialogue of the Orthodox with the Non-Chalcedonians)

Fourth Ecumenical Council: Chalcedon 451

And the adversary would have been like a wild beast outside the fold, roaring to himself and unable to seize any one, had not the late bishop of Alexandria thrown himself for a prey to him, who, though he had done many terrible things before, eclipsed the former by the latter deeds; for contrary to all the injunctions of the canons, he deposed that blessed shepherd of the saints at Constantinople, Flavian, who displayed such Apostolic faith, and the most pious bishop Eusebius, and acquitted by his terror-won votes Eutyches, who had been condemned for heresy, and restored to him the dignity which your holiness had taken away from him as unworthy of it, and like the strangest of wild beasts, falling upon the vine which he found in the finest condition, he uprooted it and brought in that which had been cast away as unfruitful, and those who acted like true shepherds he cut off, and set over the flocks those who had shown themselves wolves: and besides all this he stretched forth his fury even against him who had been charged with the custody of the vine by the Saviour, we mean of course your holiness, and purposed excommunication against one who had at heart the unifying of the Church. And instead of showing penitence for this, instead of begging mercy with tears, he exulted as if over virtuous actions, rejecting your holiness’ letter and resisting all the dogmas of the Truth. (Pope St. Leo, Epistles: Letter 98 From the Council of Chalcedon to Leo)

Fifth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople II 553

…[I]f anyone shall calumniate the holy Council of Chalcedon, pretending that it made use of this expression [one hypostasis] in this impious sense, and if he will not recognize rather that the Word of God is united with the flesh hypostatically, and that therefore there is but one hypostasis or one only Person, and that the holy Council of Chalcedon has professed in this sense the one Person of our Lord Jesus Christ: let him be anathema. For since one of the Holy Trinity has been made man, viz.: God the Word, the Holy Trinity has not been increased by the addition of another person or hypostasis. (Canon 5)

The term ‘Orthodox’ originally came into popular usage in the Eastern Christian world as a descriptor of the church communities in the sixth century, to distinguish those who accepted the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (451 ad) from those who refused them. It grew up as a party term, therefore, meant to distinguish the Byzantine Christians (and the Latins along with them) from those dissenting from the Christological settlement of Chalcedon. (Fr. John McGuckin: The Orthodox Church pg. 24)

It is well known that among the dialogues that the Orthodox Catholic Church is conducting with the heterodox is the one with the Monophysites, or “Non-Chalcedonians,” or “Pre-Chalcedonians,” or the “Ancient Orientals,” or—as they have recently been called, contrary to Tradition—, “Oriental Orthodox.” …[A] fruit of this theological relativism and syncretism that they have been cultivating was the prettified picture of our differences with the Monophysites, who are no longer called such, but at first “Non-Chalcedonians,” then “Pre-Chalcedonians” or “Ancient Orientals,” and now “Orthodox,” since we have demolished the boundaries and the frontiers, despite the advice of the Fathers “not to remove the eternal boundaries which our Fathers established,” and have allowed the Monophysites, who have been heretics for fifteen centuries in the conscience of the Church, to become fellow-heirs of Orthodoxy and be called Orthodox after ourselves, without return and repentance. The theological confusion and muddle is really astonishing, as is the demolition of all the boundaries. If someone just ten years earlier were to read or hear the term “Inter-Orthodox Commission” or “Orthodox Churches,” he would surely understand a commission of Orthodox or local Orthodox Churches that belong to the Orthodox Eastern Catholic Church, which comprises the autocephalous Orthodox Churches of the East with the Church of Constantinople occupying the first place. However, this is not self-evident now; after many years of organized work by the draughtsmen of Ecumenism an “Inter-Orthodox Commission” can include Non-Chalcedonians, since with our acquiescence the Monophysite Churches of the Copts, the Syro-Jacobites, the Armenians, the Ethiopians, et al., are now numbered among the Orthodox Churches of the East. (Protopresbyter Theodore Zisis, Professor at the University of Thessaloniki: St. John of Damascus and the ‘Orthodoxy’ of the Non-Chalcedonians)

[T]he lack of recognition by the so-called Anti-Chalcedonians of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils, and the theory of some Orthodox theologians of Neo-Chalcedonianism, in essence have a common denominator and cannot be accepted by the Orthodox Church.

It is precisely for this reason that we cannot, on the Orthodox side, speak of Anti-Chalcedonians or Pre-Chalcedonians, but only of Monophysites, since the so-called Anti-Chalcedonians believe that, although the union in Christ was of two natures, after the union there is one nature in Christ. Some so-called Anti-Chaldedonians argue that, although after the union there is one nature in Christ, the human nature has not disappeared. And this view is paradoxical. How can it be one nature in Christ after the union “without the human nature disappearing”, and how does this human nature stand by itself, without this being considered Nestorianism, which the Anti-Chalcedonians want to fight? This is the reason that moves me to call them Monophysites and not Anti-Chalcedonians or Pre-Chalcedonians.(Met. Hierotheos Vlachosof Nafpaktos and St. Blasios, Dialogue with the Monophysites)

Sixth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople III 680-681

Wherefore this our holy and Ecumenical Synod having driven away the impious error which had prevailed for a certain time until now, and following closely the straight path of the holy and approved Fathers, has piously given its full assent to the five holy and Ecumenical Synods (that is to say, to that of the 318 holy Fathers who assembled in Nicea against the raging Arius; and the next in Constantinople of the 150 God-inspired men against Macedonius the adversary of the Spirit, and the impious Apollinaris; and also the first in Ephesus of 200 venerable men convened against Nestorius the Judaizer; and that in Chalcedon of 630 God-inspired Fathers against Eutyches and Dioscorus hated of God; and in addition to these, to the last, that is the Fifth holy Synod assembled in this place, against Theodore of Mopsuestia, Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius, and the writings of Theodoret against the Twelve Chapters of the celebrated Cyril, and the Epistle which was said to be written by Ibas to Maris the Persian), renewing in all things the ancient decrees of religion, and chasing away the impious doctrines of irreligion. And this our holy and Ecumenical Synod inspired of God has set its seal to the Creed which was put forth by the 318 Fathers, and again religiously confirmed by the 150, which also the other holy synods cordially received and ratified for the taking away of every soul-destroying heresy. (The Definition of the Faith)

And as we recognize two natures, so also we recognize two natural wills and two natural operations. For we dare not say that either of the natures which are in Christ in His incarnation is without a will and operation: lest in taking away the proprieties of those natures, we likewise take away the natures of which they are the proprieties. For we neither deny the natural will of his humanity, or its natural operation: lest we also deny what is the chief thing of the dispensation for our salvation, and lest we attribute passions to the Godhead. For this they were attempting who have recently introduced the detestable novelty that in him there is but one will and one operation, renewing the malignancy of Arius, Apollinaris, Eutyches and Severus. (The Prosphoneticus to the Emperor)

Council in Trullo 692

Moreover we confirm that faith which at Chalcedon, the Metropolis, was set forth in accordance with orthodoxy by the six hundred and thirty God-approved fathers in the time of Marcian, who was our Emperor, which handed down with a great and mighty voice, even unto the ends of the earth, that the one Christ, the son of God, is of two natures, and must be glorified in these two natures, and which cast forth from the sacred precincts of the Church as a black pestilence to be avoided, Eutyches, babbling stupidly and inanely, and teaching that the great mystery of the incarnation (οἰκονωμίας) was perfected in thought only. And together with him also Nestorius and Dioscorus of whom the former was the defender and champion of the division, the latter of the confusion [of the two natures in the one Christ], both of whom fell away from the divergence of their impiety to a common depth of perdition and denial of God. (Canon 1)

Whereas we have heard that in some places in the hymn Trisagion there is added after Holy and Immortal,Who was crucified for us, have mercy upon us, and since this as being alien to piety was by the ancient and holy Fathers cast out of the hymn, as also the violent heretics who inserted these new words were cast out of the Church; we also, confirming the things which were formerly piously established by our holy Fathers, anathematize those who after this present decree allow in church this or any other addition to the most sacred hymn; but if indeed he who has transgressed is of the sacerdotal order, we command that he be deprived of his priestly dignity, but if he be a layman or monk let him be cut off. (Canon 81)

…[T]he Manichæans, and Valentinians and Marcionites and all of similar heresies must give certificates and anathematize each his own heresy, and also Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, Severus, and the other chiefs of such heresies, and those who think with them, and all the aforesaid heresies; and so they become partakers of the holy Communion. (Canon 95)

Pope St. Gregory the Dialogist on the method of receiving Monophysites into the Church: Monophysites and others are received by a true confession only, because holy baptism, which they have received among heretics, then acquires in them the power of cleansing, when either the former receive the Holy Spirit by imposition of hands, or the latter are united to the bowels of the holy and universal Church by reason of their confession of the true faith. (Epistles, Bk. 11: Epistle 67)

Seventh Ecumenical Council: Nicea II 787

We detest and anathematize Arius and all the sharers of his absurd opinion; also Macedonius and those who following him are well styled Foes of the Spirit (Pneumatomachi). We confess that our Lady, St. Mary, is properly and truly the Mother of God, because she was the Mother after the flesh of One Person of the Holy Trinity, to wit, Christ our God, as the Council of Ephesus has already defined when it cast out of the Church the impious Nestorius with his colleagues, because he taught that there were two Persons [in Christ]. With the Fathers of this synod we confess that he who was incarnate of the immaculate Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary has two natures, recognizing him as perfect God and perfect man, as also the Council of Chalcedon has promulgated, expelling from the divine Atrium [αὐλῆς] as blasphemers, Eutyches and Dioscorus; and placing in the same category Severus, Peter and a number of others, blaspheming in various fashions. Moreover, with these we anathematize the fables of Origen, Evagrius, and Didymus, in accordance with the decision of the Fifth Council held at Constantinople. We affirm that in Christ there be two wills and two operations according to the reality of each nature, as also the Sixth Synod, held at Constantinople, taught, casting out Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, and those who agree with them, and all those who are unwilling to be reverent. (The Decree)

And now having carefully traced the traditions of the Apostles and Fathers, we are bold to speak. Having but one mind by the inbreathing of the most Holy Spirit, and being all knit together in one, and understanding the harmonious tradition of the Catholic Church, we are in perfect harmony with the symphonies set forth by the six, holy and ecumenical councils; and accordingly we have anathematised the madness of Arius, the frenzy of Macedonius, the senseless understanding of Appolinarius, the man-worship of Nestorius, the irreverent mingling of the natures devised by Eutyches and Dioscorus, and the many-headed hydra which is their companion. We have also anathematised the idle tales of Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius; and the doctrine of one will held by Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, and Pyrrhus, or rather, we have anathematised their own evil will. Finally, taught by the Spirit, from whom we have drawn pure water, we have with one accord and one soul, altogether wiped out with the sponge of the divine dogmas the newly devised heresy, well-worthy to be classed with those just mentioned, which springing up after them, uttered such empty nonsense about the sacred icons. And the contrivers of this vain, but revolutionary babbling we have cast forth far from the Church’s precincts. (Letter of the Synod to the Emperor and Empress)

Fr. Georges Florovsky: “It is not a case of lifting some simple canonical anathema. The case is much more difficult when the anathema is of theological nature.”(quote excerpted from Suggestions of a Committee from the Sacred Community of the Holy Mountain Athos Concerning the Dialogue of the Orthodox with the Non-Chalcedonians)

Lateran Council 649

If anyone according to the holy Fathers, harmoniously with us and likewise with the Faith, does not with mind and lips reject and anathematize all the most abominable heretics together with their impious writings even to one least portion, whom the holy Catholic and apostolic Church of God, that is, the holy and universal five Synods and likewise all the approved Fathers of the Church in harmony, rejects and anathematizes, we mean Sabellius, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Polemon, Eutyches, Dioscurus, Timothy Aelurus, Severus, Theodosius, Colluthus, Themistius, Paul of Samosata , Diodorus, Theodore, Nestorius, Theodulus the Persian, Origen, Didymus, Evagrius, and briefly all the remaining heretics, who have been condemned and cast out by the Catholic Church; whose teachings are the fruit of diabolical operation, and those, who unto the end have obstinately suggested (ideas) similar to these, or do suggest (them), or are believed to suggest (them), with whom (they are) justly (associated), inasmuch as (they are) like them and (are) possessed of a similar error, according to which they are known to teach and by their own error determine their lives…(Canon 18)

St. Maximus the Confessor, who organized this synod presided over by Pope St. Martin, referred to the Lateran Council of 649 as the “sixth synod, which through the divine inspiration of God set forth with all pure piety the doctrines of the holy Fathers”. Although Pope St. Martin and St. Maximus were abducted after the council by Emperor Constans II and tried in Constantinople for their role in the council (Martin being replaced as pope before his death in exile and Maximus having his tongue and right hand cut off), their position was ultimately endorsed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680.

Synodikon of Orthodoxy

To them who reject the teachings which were pronounced for the establishment of the true doctrines of the Church of God by the Holy Fathers Athanasios, Cyril, Ambrose, Amphilochios the God-proclaiming, Leo the most holy Archbishop of Old Rome, and by all the others, and furthermore, who do not embrace the Acts of the Ecumenical Councils, especially those of the Fourth, I say, and of the Sixth, ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA….To Peter the Fuller and insane, who says, ‘Holy Immortal Who was crucified for us,’ ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA… To Peter the Paltry, the heretic, who was surnamed Lycopetrus, or ‘the Wolf,’ to the evil-minded Eutychius and Sabellios, ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA!. To James Stanstalus the Armenian, to Dioscorus the Patriarch of Alexandria, to the godless Severus, as well as to the like-minded Sergius, Paul and Pyrrus, and to Sergius, the disciple of Lycopetrus… ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA! To all the Eutychians and Monothelites and Jacobites and Artzibourziter, and simply all heretics,…ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA! ANATHEMA!

Professor G. Mantzaridis notes: It is not possible under the light of new dogmatic agreement for Synods that were condemned by Ecumenical Synods to be viewed as Orthodox in their teaching content, for a teaching is not exhausted only in the formulation of the dogma but also expresses the unity and identity of the Church. Neither is it possible for people who are anathematized in the Synodicon of Orthodoxy to be regarded as fathers of another Orthodox Church which is finally to be accepted as identical with the Church that formed the Synodicon. Always and especially in crucial times as in the present, attention to the through-the-ages identity and conscious of Orthodoxy is imperative. (G. Mantzaridis, Orthodoxy and European Unity, Thessalonika 1994, p.157-8)

St. Euthymias the Great ca. 377-473

When the news had circulated, as people reported that the great Euthymius had accepted the definition of the faith proclaimed at Chalcedon, all the monks were about to accept it, had they not been prevented by one Theodosius, in appearance a monk but in reality a precursor of Antichrist…Noting Theodosius’ utter shamelessness, the great Euthymius told the fathers not to share in his apostasy and so departed to the utter desert; on hearing of this, many anchorites adopted the same policy. At that time there was a great anchorite of Lycian origin, called Gerasimus (St. Gerasimus of the Jordan died ca. 475), who after succeeding in the monastic life in his own homeland and displaying many combats against the spirits of wickedness had recently left his homeland and was practicing the anchoritic life in the desert by the Jordan. He with the other anchorites had been seduced by the false teaching of Theodosius; but on hearing from almost all the anchorites of the resplendent grace of the great Euthymius he went to him at Rouba, and after staying with him for a considerable time was persuaded to assent to the definition issued by the council of Chalcedon and break off his association with Theodosius, as did other anchorites also…’ (Life of Euthymius, Cyril of Scythopolis: Lives of the Monks of Palestine)

St. Symeon Stylites the Elder ca. 390-459

On this account, I also, though mean and worthless, the refuse of the monks, have conveyed to his majesty my judgment respecting the creed of the six hundred and thirty holy Fathers assembled at Chalcedon, firmly resolving to abide by the faith then revealed by the Holy Spirit: for if, in the midst of two or three who are gathered in His name, the Saviour is present, how could it be otherwise, than that the Holy Spirit should be throughout in the midst of so many and so distinguished holy fathers? (Reply to Emperor Leo I, Evagrius Scholasticus: Ecclesiastical History Bk. 2.10)

St. Sabas the Sanctified ca. 439-532

The patriarch having sent letters in advance to the emperor (St. Justinian) announcing godly Sabas’ arrival, our divinely protected emperor, overjoyed, sent the imperial galleys to meet him; with them went out to meet him the patriarch Epiphanius, Father Eusebius and Bishop Hypatius of Ephesus. Receiving him, they led him to the emperor, and God revealed the grace accompanying his servant to the emperor as he had done previously in the time of Anastasius. For as he entered the palace with the said bishops and came within the curtain, God opened the emperor’s eyes; he saw the radiance of divine favor in the shape of a crown blazing forth and emitting sunlike beams from the head of the old man. Running up, he greeted him with reverence, kissing his godly head with tears of joy; on obtaining his blessing, he took from his hand the petition of Palestine and pressed him to go in and bless the Augusta Theodora. The elder went in and was received with joy by the Augusta, who greeted him respectfully and made this request: ‘Pray for me, father, that God grant me fruit of the womb.’ The Augusta said again, ‘Pray, father, that God give me a child.’ The elder said in reply, ‘The God of glory will maintain your empire in piety and victory.’ The Augusta was grieved at his not granting her request. So when he left her presence, the fathers with him expressed their doubts by asking, ‘Why did you distress the Augusta by not praying as she requested?’ The elder answered them, ‘Believe me, fathers, fruit will never come forth from her womb, lest it suck in the doctrines of Severus and cause worse upheaval to the Church than Anastasius.’ (Life of Sabas, Cyril of Scythopolis: Lives of the Monks of Palestine)

…[I]n the sixty-third year of the life of the great Sabas…He then transfered the Armenians from the little oratory to performing the office of psalmody in the Armenian language…But when some of them to recite the Trisagion hymn with the addition ‘who was crucified for us’ concocted by Peter nicknamed the Fuller, the godly man was rightly indignant and ordered them to chant this hymn in Greek according to the ancient tradition of the catholic Church and not according to the innovation of the said Peter, who had shared the opinions of Eutyches… (Life of Sabas 32, Cyril of Scythopolis: The Lives of the Monks of Palestine)

The originator and perpetrator of all this is Severus, Acephelos and Apochist (*) from the original beginning, who for the destruction of his own soul and of the commonwealth has by God’s leave for our sins been appointed bishop of Antioch and has anathematized our holy fathers who in every way confirmed the apostolic faith defined and transmitted to us by the holy fathers assembled at Nicea and baptize all in it. Shunning and utterly rejecting communion with this Acephalos, we entreat your Piety to have pity on Sion, the mother of all the churches and protector of your rule dear to God, who is being so ignominiously maltreated and ravaged. (Ss. Sabas and Theodosius the Cenobiarch Petition to the Emperor, Life of Sabas 57)

(*) “Aposchist” means “a separatist” or schismatic. W.H.C. Frend in his work “The Rise of the Monophysite Movement” writes: There could be no greater mistake than to try to see the Monophysites as Donatism in Egyptian or Syrian form. Chalcedon was followed by a schism of hearts and minds throughout the whole of the east, but no ‘altar was set up against altar’ (phraseology of Augustine of Hippo and Optatus of Milevis) as it had been in Africa in 312. No formal break occured until a very considerable number of Christians throughout the east came to feel that it was intolerable to receive sacraments at the hands of one who was not strictly orthodox, especially when in some areas in the east these were received once a year. It was not until the time of Severus of Antioch, and due largely to his ‘strictness’ (akribeia) in relation to the reception of sacraments from Chalcedonians that permanent division between supporters and opponents of Chalcedon was rendered inevitable, and even then the organization of a rival Monophysite hierarchy took a very long while. For the generation following the council this step was not even considered, a fact which must influence any assessment of the nationalist or particularist and indeed any non-theological element in Monophysitism. (Chap. 2 The Emperor and His Church, pg. 62)

St. Justinian the Emperor ca. 483-565

So then, in that Apollinaris and Manichaeus deny the truth of the two natures in Christ, i.e. of His divinity and His humanity, it is clearly confirmed that those who have earned the name “Acephaloi” are of the same mind as these godless men, even though they may resist being called “Apollinarian” or “Manichaean” so that they may continue their deception. Following from this, it is clearly confirmed that Dioscorus and Timothy Aelurus, to whom the Acephaloi subscribe as fathers and teachers, follow the evil teachings of Apollinaris and Manichaeus, and believe and teach what is contrary to the teachings of Athanasius and Cyril, which we will now show. For instance, in the letter he sent from Gangros to Alexandria, Dioscorus says this:

“Unless the blood of Christ is by nature the blood of God and not of man, how will it differ from the blood of he-goats, young bulls, and heifers? These are earthly and corruptible, and the blood of men is also earthly and corruptible by nature. But as for the blood of Christ, we will never say that it belongs to one of those who is [earthly and corruptible] by nature.”

What could be harder to bear than this blasphemy of Dioscorus? For in denying that the blood of Christ is of the same essence as human nature, it is discovered that he does not confess the flesh of our Lord to be of the same essence as we, and he nullifies the salvation of man because he says that [the Logos’] body is of the same essence as the Logos’ divinity.

…In the same way we will show that Timothy Aelurus also agrees with Manichaeus, and that he also is of a different mind than our holy fathers Athanasius and Cyril. For instance, this Timothy says in the eighth chapter of the third book which he wrote when [exiled] in Cherson: “The nature of Christ is divine only even though it was incarnate.” Manichaeus writes the same thing in his letter to Cyndorus saying: “The whole is one nature although his form was seen as flesh.” To this we say that if, according to the nonsense of Timothy, the nature of Christis divine only, then the Father and the Holy Spirit also are Christ for there is one nature of the Godhead which we attribute to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Moreover, this man’s stupidity would mean that [Christ’s] Passion is common [to all three Persons]. (Letter to the Monks of Alexandria Against the Monophysites)

Dioscorus sometimes has wrongly been accused of misinterpreting Cyril’s mind on this point, but in fact he consistently applied Cyril’s ideas and interpreted all christology on the basis of the pure Cyrilline canon, with one significant exception. What he did was to attempt to delete Cyril’s Antiochene negotiations from the picture. He came to regard all Syrian ‘variations’ on the Cyrilline theme as dispensable. This was a fatal emendation of his teacher’s life’s work. Dioscorus regarded the rapprochement of 433 as merely the result of imperial pressure placed on a sick old man, whose judgment had accordingly lapsed. In consequence, he cut across the diphysite literature of Cyril and thus abandoned the policy of mutual search for an agreed terminology that had been slowly bringing the churches together in common agreement after the council of Ephesus. In this, he not only abandoned a part of Cyril’s legacy, but made a large departure from Proclus too. (Fr. John McGuckin: Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controvery pg. 229)

In fact, it seems that Severus understands neither the holy fathers nor the reason for which Nestorius was condemned. For while the holy fathers confessed that the two natures of divinity and humanity were united in Christ, they forbad anyone to say that there in Him two hypostases or two prosopa or two sons. Nestorius, however, confessed that “nature,” “hypostasis,” and “prosopon” are the same thing; he therefore denied the hypostatic union of the two natures and said that each nature had its own hypostasis separate from the other, thereby producing two Christs and two Sons. It was for this blasphemy of his that he was condemned by the holy fathers. St. Cyril refuted this Judaizing madman at the Council of Ephesus by bringing forth the holy fathers who forbid speaking of two sons, but rather proclaim two natures and one son. (Against the Monophysites)

Leontius of Jerusalem ca. 485-543

Since we publicly assert and maintain the statement that the Lord is ‘out of two natures’ along with the statement that He is ‘in two natures’, since we speak of a combination, and of an entire nature, and since we anathematize even an angel from heaven if he doesn’t think likewise, what possible reason can these people have for refusing to agree with us on these, using both ‘out of two’ and ‘in two’, and electing to anathematize Severus, Dioscorus, and those with them, if they don’t think the same? Since blessed Flavian’s explanation says, ‘We are not looking for an excuse not to speak of one nature of the Word of God — made flesh, of course, and become man — because our one Lord Jesus Christ is out of both’, and since the synod loudly proclaims this, in what way, in light of all this, does the synod not agree with these assertions? (Testimonies of the Saints, 1844c)

Pope St. Gregory the Dialogist ca. 540-604

Besides, since with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, I confess that I receive and revere, as the four books of the Gospel so also the four Councils: to wit, the Nicene, in which the perverse doctrine of Arius is overthrown; the Constantinopolitan also, in which the error of Eunomius and Macedonius is refuted; further, the first Ephesine, in which the impiety of Nestorius is condemned; and the Chalcedonian, in which the pravity of Eutyches and Dioscorus is reprobated. These with full devotion I embrace, and adhere to with most entire approval; since on them, as on a four-square stone, rises the structure of the holy faith; and whosoever, of whatever life and behaviour he may be, holds not fast to their solidity, even though he is seen to be a stone, yet he lies outside the building. The fifth council also I equally venerate, in which the epistle which is called that of Ibas, full of error, is reprobated; Theodorus, who divides the Mediator between God and men into two subsistences, is convicted of having fallen into the perfidy of impiety; and the writings of Theodoritus, in which the faith of the blessed Cyril is impugned, are refuted as having been published with the daring of madness. But all persons whom the aforesaid venerable Councils repudiate I repudiate; those whom they venerate I embrace; since, they having been constituted by universal consent, he overthrows not them but himself, whosoever presumes either to loose those whom they bind, or to bind those whom they loose. Whosoever, therefore, thinks otherwise, let him be anathema. But whosoever holds the faith of the aforesaid synods, peace be to him from God the Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, Who lives and reigns consubstantially God with Him in the Unity of the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen. (Bk. 1, Letter 25 to John of Constantinople, Eulogius of Alexandria, Gregory of Antioch, John of Jerusalem, and Anastasias, Ex-Patriarch of Antioch)

St. John the Almsgiver of Alexandria died ca. 616

To help this glorious man towards attaining his purpose which was indeed wholly divine, the Lord sent him John and Sophronius, [Sts. John Moschos and Sophronius of Jerusalem] who were wise in the things of God and worthy of perpetual remembrance. They were really honest counselors, and the Patriarch gave unquestioning ear to them as though they were his fathers, and was grateful to them for being most brave and valiant soldiers in the cause of the true faith. For trusting in the might of the Holy Spirit they engaged in a war of dialectics, setting their own wisdom against that of the mad followers of Severus and of the other unclean heretics who were scattered about the country; they delivered many villages and very many churches, and monasteries, too, like good shepherds saving the sheep from the jaws of these evil beasts, and for this reason above others the saintly Patriarch showed special honor to these saintly men. (Leontius of Neapolis, Life of St. John the Almsgiver, 32)

St. John Moschus ca. 550-619

About twenty miles from the city of Aegion in Cilicia there were two stylites located about six miles from each other. One of them was in communion with the holy catholic and apostolic church. The other, who had been the longer time on his column (which was near an estate called Cassiodora) adhered to the Severan sect. The heretical stylite disputed with the orthodox one in various ways, contriving and desiring to win over to his own sect. And having disseminated many words, he seemed to have got the better of him. The orthodox stylite, as though by divine inspiration, intimated that he would like the heretic to send him a portion of his eucharist. The heretic was delighted, thinking that he had led the other astray and he sent the required portion immediately without the slightest delay. The orthodox took the portion which was sent to him by the heretic (the sacrament of the Severan sect, that is) and cast it into a pot which he had brought to a boil before him — it was dissolved by the boiling of the pot. Then he took the holy eucharist of the orthodox church and cast it into the pot. Immediately the pot was cooled. The holy communion remained safe and undampened. He still keeps, for he showed it to us when we visited him. (The Spiritual Meadow 29)

Anastasios, priest and treasurer at the holy Church of the Resurrection of Christ our God told us that Cosmiana, the wife of Germanos the Patrician, came one night, wishing to worship alone at the holy and life-giving sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ, the true God. When she approached the sanctuary, our Lady the holy Mother of God, together with other women, met her in visible form, and said to her: ‘As you are not one of us, you are not to come in here, for you are none of ours.’ The woman was in fact a member of the sect of Severus Acephalos. She begged hard for permission to enter but the holy Mother of God: ‘Believe me, woman, you shall not come in here until you are in communion with us.’ The woman realized that it was because she was a heretic that she was being refused entry; and that nor would she be allowed in until she join the catholic an apostolic church of Christ our God. She sent for the deacon and when the holy chalice arrived, she partook of the holy body and blood of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ; and thus she was found worthy to worship unimpeded at the holy and life-giving sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ. (The Spiritual Meadow 48)

St. Sophronius of Jerusalem ca. 560-638

Accordingly, by the holy and consubstantial and worshipful Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, let there be anathema and condemnation forever: …Eutyches, Dioscorus, the protector and advocate of Eutyches; Barsumas, Zooras, Timothy called the Cat, Peter the Stammerer, and Acacius who crafted the Kenotikon (*)of Zeno; …Peter the Fuller, who dared to attach the cross to the Trisagion Hymn; another Peter, the defilement of Iberia of barbarian mind, who introduced another headless heresy among the Headless Ones, and Isaiah, the associate of this Peter. With all these, and before all and after all and according to all on behalf of all, let Severus be anathema, their thoroughly mad disciple, who of all the Headless Ones, new and old, is called a most cruel tyrant and a most hostile enemy of the holy catholic church, and a most disgusting seducer; and Theodosius of Alexandria, Anthimus of Trebizond, Jacob the Syrian; Julian of Halicarnassus… (Synodical Letter 2.6.1)

(*) St. Sophronius puns on the title of the Hen-otikon, Zeno’s document of “unity”, by calling it Ken-oticon, an “empty” document or a purgative. Additionally, St. Sophronius’ Synodical Letter was fully endorsed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council: “We have also examined the synodal letter of Sophronius of holy memory, some time Patriarch of the Holy City of Christ our God, Jerusalem, and have found it in accordance with the true faith and with the Apostolic teachings, and with those of the holy approved Fathers. Therefore we have received it as orthodox and as salutary to the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and have decreed that it is right that his name be inserted in the diptychs of the Holy Churches.” (Session XIII: Sentence Against the Monothelites)

St. Maximus the Confessor ca. 580-662

Severus knavishly says that hypostasis is the same as nature. (Patrologia Graeca, Vol. XCI, Col. 40A.)

Fr. Demetrios Bathrellos comments: For Maximus, the distinction between person/hypostasis, on the one hand, and nature/essence on the other, is indispensible for the articulation of a proper Christology. Severus’ fatal mistake consists precisely in his refusal to distinguish between them, because, without this distinction, it is not possible to denote unity and and distinction in a satisfactory way. Maximus argues that by identifying hypostasis with nature, Severus confuses divinity and humanity. By the same token, by arguing that there is a distinction in the natural qualities too, because, since nature and hypostasis are the same, ‘natural qualities’ equals ‘hypostatic qualities’; thus, for Maximus, Severus falls into Nestorianism (Ep. 15, 568D) (Byzantine Christ, pg. 101)

Nestorius and Severus, therefore, have one aim in their ungodliness, even though the mode is different. For the one, afraid of confusion, flees from the hypostatic union and makes the essential difference a personal division. The other, afraid of division, denies the essential difference and turns the hypostatic union into a natural confusion. It is necessary to confess neither confusion in Christ, nor division, but the union of those that are essentially different, and the difference of those that are hypostatically united, in order that the principle of the essences and the mode of the union might be proclaimed. But they break asunder both of these: Nestorius only confirms a union of gnomic qualities, Severus only confirms the difference of natural qualities after the union, and both of them have missed the truth of things. The one recklessly scribes division to the mystery, the other confusion. (Opuscule 3: 56D)

St. Anastasios the Sinaite died ca. 700

Aristotle says that persons are particular essences; going by this vain rule, Arius said that there were three essences, of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Going by this iniquitous definition, Severus said that Christ was one nature formed from two particular essences, that is, separate hypostases. (Patrologia Graeca, Vol. LXXXIX, Col. 108B.)

St. John Damascene ca. 676-749

The Egyptians, who are also called schematics and Mononphysites: separated from the Orthodox Church on the pretext of the document approved at Chalcedon and known as the Tome. They have been called Egyptians, because it wasthe Egyptians who first started this form of heresy during the reigns of the Emperors Marcian and Valentinian; in every other way they are Orthodox. Because they were attached to Dioscoros of Alexandria, who was deposed by the Synod in Chalcedon for advocating the teachings of Eutyches, they opposed the Synod and fabricated countless charges against it to the best of their ability. We have taken up these charges in this book and sufficiently refuted them, showing them to be clumsy and stupid. Their leaders were Theodosios of Alexandria, from whom derive the Theodosians, and James [Baradaios] of Syria, from whom the Jacobites derive. Privy to them, and supporters and champions, were Severos, the corrupter from Antioch, and John [Philoponos] the Tritheite, who toiled on vain things; they denied the mystery of our common salvation. They wrote many things against the God-inspired teaching of the 630 Fathers of Chalcedon, and laid many snares, so to speak, and “stumbling blocks by the path” (Ps. 139:6) for those who were perishing by their pernicious heresy. Nevertheless, even though they teach that there are particular substances, they confound the mystery of the Incarnation. We considered it necessary to discuss their impiety in brief, adding short notes in refutation of their godless and abominable heresy. I shall set forth the teachings, or rather, ravings, of their champion John, in which they take so much pride. (Concerning Heresies 83)

Dioscorus and Severus and the multitudinous mobs of both accepted that there was one and the same hypostasis, defining in a similar way that there was one nature, ‘not knowing what they say nor understanding what they assert.’ The disease or deception in their mind lay in this, that they conceived nature and hypostasis to be the same. (Greek Fathers of the Church Vol. 4 pg. 346, Thessaloniki: 1990)

…[W]e declare that the addition which the vain-minded Peter the Fuller made to the Trisagium or Thrice Holy Hymn is blasphemous; for it introduces a fourth person into the Trinity, giving a separate place to the Son of God, Who is the truly subsisting power of the Father, and a separate place to Him Who was crucified as though He were different from the Mighty One, or as though the Holy Trinity was considered passible, and the Father and the Holy Spirit suffered on the Cross along with the Son. Have done with this blasphemous and nonsensical interpolation! For we hold the words Holy God to refer to the Father, without limiting the title of divinity to Him alone, but acknowledging also as God the Son and the Holy Spirit: and the words Holy and Mighty we ascribe to the Son, without stripping the Father and the Holy Spirit of might: and the words Holy and Immortal we attribute to the Holy Spirit, without depriving the Father and the Son of immortality. For, indeed, we apply all the divine names simply and unconditionally to each of the subsistences in imitation of the divine Apostle’s words. But to us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him: and one Lord Jesus Christ by Whom are all things, and we by Him 1 Cor. 8:5. And, nevertheless, we follow Gregory the Theologian when he says, But to us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, in Whom are all things: for the words of Whom and through Whom and in Whom do not divide the natures (for neither the prepositions nor the order of the names could ever be changed), but they characterise the properties of one unconfused nature. And this becomes clear from the fact that they are once more gathered into one, if only one reads with care these words of the same Apostle, Of Him and through Him and in Him are all things: to Him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen Rom. 11:36.

For that the Trisagium refers not to the Son alone , but to the Holy Trinity, the divine and saintly Athanasius and Basil and Gregory, and all the band of the divinely-inspired Fathers bear witness: because, as a matter of fact, by the threefold holiness the Holy Seraphim suggest to us the three subsistences of the superessential Godhead. But by the one Lordship they denote the one essence and dominion of the supremely-divine Trinity. Gregory the Theologian of a truth says , Thus, then, the Holy of Holies, which is completely veiled by the Seraphim, and is glorified with three consecrations, meet together in one lordship and one divinity. This was the most beautiful and sublime philosophy of still another of our predecessors. (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith Bk. 3.10: Concerning the Trisagion)

St. Photios the Great ca. 810-893

Countless have been the evils devised by the cunning devil against the race of men, from the beginning up to the coming of the Lord. But even afterwards, he has not ceased through errors and heresies to beguile and deceive those who listen to him. Before our times, the Church, witnessed variously the godless errors of Arius, Macedonius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Discorus, and a foul host of others, against which the holy Ecumenical Synods were convened, and against which our holy and God-bearing Fathers battled with the sword of the Holy Spirit. Yet, even after these heresies had been overcome and peace reigned, and from the Imperial Capital the streams of Orthodoxy flowed throughout the world; after some people who had been afflicted by the Monophysite heresy returned to the True Faith because of your holy prayers… (Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs)

The Lateran Council of 649 was a local council of the Church of Rome organized by Maximus the Confessor and called by Pope Theodore I of Rome that was the first attempt by a pope of Rome to convene an ecumenical council independent of the Roman emperor. Pope Theodore died before the council met and was replaced by Pope Martin I. Although Martin and Maximus the Confessor were abducted after the council by Constans II and tried in Constantinople for their role in the council (Martin being replaced as pope before his death in exile), their position was ultimately endorsed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680.

The synod had its roots in correspondence between Pope Theodore I and Maximus dating to 646, before the latter’s arrival in Rome. The momentum for the Council was almost extinguished when Patriarch Pyrrhus I of Constantinople in late 646/early 647 denounced Monothelitism before the clergy and laity in Roma. However, Pyrrhus changed his mind after leaving Rome and arriving in Ravenna. His successor, Paul II of Constantinople, was of the same mind.

Emperor Constans II issued the Typos in 648 which prohibited any discussion of the issue of “one will and one energy, or two energies and two wills” in Christ. The Typos was viewed as an unacceptable threat to the legacy of Chalcedon, and thus hardened the determination of Theodore and Maximus to convene a council. Maximus and other monks from his order did all of planning, preparation, and scripting of the Council, while there is little evidence that Pope Theodore did much to prepare for it.

On May 14, 649, Theodore died while preparations were on-going for the Council. His death left Maximus without his patron and collaborator of the last three years with the Papacy vacant at one of the most crucial times in the church’s history. The Roman clergy were faced with the difficult dilemma of finding a successor with the intellectual reputation to convene the Council, and who would not be denied the iussio of the emperor required for his consecration.

On July 5, 649, with the influence of Maximus, a deacon from Todi, in central Italy, was consecrated Pope Martin I, the first (and only) pope consecrated without imperial approval during the period of the Byzantine Papacy. Although he was the former apocrisiarius to Constantinople and well respected in the East, Martin’s election was an indisputable “battle cry against Constantinople”. Martin’s stature and proficiency in Greek was attested to by Theodore’s offer to appoint Martin as his personal representative to an earlier proposed synod in Constantinople.

News of the impending council reached Constantinople as Martin prepared for it during the summer and fall of 649, but the empire was too occupied with crises in the East to divert its attention. Far from being spontaneous or extemporaneous, the Council had been meticulously prepared and rehearsed over the previous three years. Despite Martin’s nominal role in presiding over the Council, none of its participants were ignorant of the decisive influence of Maximus in bringing it about. According to Ekonomou, the Council was “in form as well as substance, a manifestly Byzantine affair”.

The Council was attended by 105 bishops, all but one from the western portion of the Eastern Roman Empire. Stephen of Dor, a Palestinian, was the only bishop whose See was not in Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, or Africa. Transalpine Europe, Spain, Greece, and Crete—despite lying within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome—were not represented. One-fourth of the bishops were (as indicated by their names) likely of Eastern ethnicity or origin and thus probably Greek-speaking.

The Council’s formal pronouncements amounted to 20 canons. Canons X and XI are the ones that specifically took up the subject of Christ’s two wills and two energies, and were based mainly on Maximus’s earlier disputation against Pyrrhus while in Carthage. Source: http://orthodoxwiki.org/Lateran_Council

Canon 1. If anyone does not confess properly and truly in accord with the holy Fathers that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit [are a] Trinity in unity, and a unity in Trinity, that is, one God in three subsistences, consubstantial and of equal glory, one and the same Godhead, nature, substance, virtue, power, kingdom, authority, will, operation of the three, uncreated, without beginning, incomprehensible, immutable, creator and protector of all things, let him be condemned.

Canon 2. If anyone does not properly and truly confess in accordance with the Holy Fathers that God the Word himself, one of the holy and consubstantial and venerable Trinity, descended from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and Mary ever Virgin, and was made man, was crucified in the flesh, voluntarily suffered for us and was buried, and arose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come again with paternal glory, with his flesh assumed by Him and intellectually animated, to judge the living and the dead, let him be condemned.

Canon 3. If anyone does not properly and truly confess in accord with the holy Fathers, that the holy Mother of God and ever Virgin and immaculate Mary in the earliest of the ages conceived of the Holy Spirit without seed, namely, God the Word Himself specifically and truly, who was born of God the Father before all ages, and that she incorruptibly bore [Him?], her virginity remaining indestructible even after His birth, let him be condemned.

Canon 4. If anyone does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers, two nativities of our one Lord and God Jesus Christ, as before the ages from God and the Father incorporally and eternally, and as from the holy ever Virgin, Mother of God Mary, corporally in the earliest of the ages, and also one and the same Lord of us and God, Jesus Christ with God and His Father according to His divine nature and , consubstantial with man and His Mother according to the human nature, and the same one passible in the flesh, and impassible in the Godhead, circumscribed in the body, uncircumscribed in Godhead, the same one uncreated and created, terrestial and celestial, visible and intelligible, comprehensible and incomprehensible, that all mankind which fell under sin, might be restored through the same complete man and God, let him be condemned.

Canon 5. If anyone does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers one incarnate nature of God the Word, in this way, that our substance is called incarnate perfectly in Christ God and without diminution, provided substance is signified without sin, let him be condemned.

Canon 6. If anyone does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers, that from two and in two natures substantially united unconfusedly and undividedly there is one and the same Lord and God, Jesus Christ, let him be condemned.

Canon 7. If anyone does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers, the substantial difference of the natures preserved in Him, unconfusedly and undividedly, let him be condemned.

Canon 8. If anyone does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers the substantial union of the natures recognized in Him undividedly and unconfusedly, let him be condemned.

Canon 9. If anyone does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers, the natural properties of His Godhead and of His humanity preserved without diminution and without injury in Him, let him be condemned.

Canon 10. If anyone does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers two wills of one and the same Christ our God, united uninterruptedly, divine and human, and on this account that through each of His natures the same one of His own free will is the operator [Editors add: operator] of our salvation, let him be condemned.

Canon 11. If anyone does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers two operations of one and the same Christ our God uninterruptedly united, divine and human, from this that through each of His natures He naturally is the same operator of our salvation, let him be condemned.

Canon 12. If anyone according to the wicked heretics confesses one will and one operation of Christ our God, to the destruction of the confession of the holy Fathers and to the denial of the same dispensation of our Savior, let him be condemned.

Canon 13. If anyone according to the wicked heretics, contrary to the doctrine of the Fathers, confesses both one will and one operation, although two wills and two operations, divine and human, have been substantially preserved in union in Christ God, and have been piously preached by our holy Fathers, let him be condemned.

Canon 14. If anyone according to the wicked heretics, together with one will and one operation, which is impiously confessed by the heretics, denies and rejects both two wills and in like manner two operations, that is, divine and human, which are preserved in unity in the very Christ God, and are proclaimed in regard to Him in an orthodox manner by the holy Fathers, let him be condemned.

Canon 15. If anyone according to the wicked heretics unwisely accepts the divine-human operation, which the Greeks call (Greek text deleted),as one operation, but does not confess that it is twofold according to the holy Fathers, that is, divine and human, or that the new application itself of the word “divine-human” which has been used is descriptive of one, but not demonstrative of the marvelous and glorious union of both, let him be condemned.

Canon 16. If anyone according to the wicked heretics in the destruction of the two wills and the two operations, that is, divine and human, preserved essentially in unity in Christ God, and piously preached by the holy Fathers, foolishly connects discords and differences with the mystery of His dispensation, and so attributes the evangelical and apostolic words about the same Savior not to one and the same person and essentially to the same Lord Himself and God, our Jesus Christ, according to blessed Cyril, so that he is shown to be by nature God and likewise man, let him be condemned.

Canon 17. If anyone in word and mind does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers all even to the last portion that has been handed down and preached in the holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church of God, and likewise by the holy Fathers and the five venerable universal Councils, let him be condemned.

Canon 18. If anyone according to the holy Fathers, harmoniously with us and likewise with the Faith, does not with mind and lips reject and anathematize all the most abominable heretics together with their impious writings even to one least portion, whom the holy Catholic and apostolic Church of God, that is, the holy and universal five Synods and likewise all the approved Fathers of the Church in harmony, rejects and anathematizes, we mean Sabellius, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Polemon, Eutyches, Dioscurus, Timothy Aelurus, Severus, Theodosius, Colluthus, Themistius, Paul of Samosata , Diodorus, Theodore, Nestorius, Theodulus the Persian, Origen, Didymus, Evagrius, and briefly all the remaining heretics, who have been condemned and cast out by the Catholic Church; whose teachings are the fruit of diabolical operation, and those, who unto the end have obstinately suggested (ideas) similar to these, or do suggest (them), or are believed to suggest (them), with whom (they are) justly (associated), inasmuch as (they are) like them and (are) possessed of a similar error, according to which they are known to teach and by their own error determine their lives, we mean, Theodore formerly Bishop of Pharan, Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius of Constantinople, or his successors, Pyrrhus and Paul, persisting in their treachery, and all their impious writings; and those, who have unto the end obstinately suggested, or are suggesting, or are believed to suggest (ideas) similar to those, that is, one will and one operation of the divinity and humanity of Christ, and besides these the very impious Ecthesis, which was composed at the persuasion of the same Sergius by Heraclius, formerly emperor in opposition to the orthodox faith, defining that one will of Christ God, and one operation from the composite are to be venerated; but also everything, which has been impiously written or done by them in defense of it, and those who accept it, or any thing that has been written or done in defense of it; and together with those again the wicked Typus, who on the persuasion of the aforementioned Paul was prepared recently by the most serene Emperor Constantine [read: Constantius], the emperor against the Catholic Church, inasmuch as he promulgates equally the denial and by silence the binding together of two natural wills and operations, divine and human, which are piously preached by the holy Fathers in the very Christ, true God and our Savior, together with one will and operation, which is impiously venerated in Him by the heretics, and inasmuch as he unjustly defines that together with the holy Fathers the wicked heretics also are freed from all reprehension and condemnation, unto the trimming down of the definitions or of the rule of the Catholic Church.

If anyone therefore, as has been said, does not in agreement with us reject and anathematize all these most impious teachings of their heresy, and those matters which have been impiously written by anyone in defense of them or in definition of them, and the specifically designated heretics, we mean Theodore, Cyrus and Sergius, Pyrrhus and Paul, seeing that they are the rebels against the Catholic Church; or if anyone holds as condemned and entirely deposed some one of these who were in writing, or without writing, in any manner or place or time whatsoever rashly deposed or condemned by them (heretics) or by persons like them, inasmuch as the one condemned does not believe at all like them but with us confesses the doctrine of the holy Fathers-but, on the contrary (anyone) does not consider everybody who has been of this class-that is, whether bishop or priest or deacon or a member of any other ecclesiastical rank, or monk or layman-pious and orthodox and a defender of the Catholic Church, and also more firmly settled in the order to which he has been called by the Lord, but believes such (to be) impious and their judgments in defense of this detestable, or their opinions vain and invalid and weak, nay more wicked and execrable or worthy of condemnation, let such a person be condemned.

Canon 19. If anyone who indubitably has professed and also understands those (teachings) which the wicked heretics suggest, through vain impudence says that these are teachings of piety, which the investigators and ministers of the Word have handed down from the beginning, that is to say, the five holy and universal Synods, certainly calumniating the holy Fathers themselves and the five holy Synods mentioned, in the deception of the simple, or in the acceptance of their own impious treachery, let such a person be condemned.

Canon 20. If anyone according to the wicked heretics in any manner whatsoever, by any word whatsoever, or at any time or place whatsoever illicitly removing the bounds which the holy Fathers of the Catholic Church have rather firmly established[ Prov. 22:28], that is, the five holy and universal Synods, in order rashly to seek for novelties and expositions of another faith; or books, or letters, or writings, or subscriptions, or false testimonies, or synods, or records of deeds, or vain ordinations unknown to ecclesiastical rule; or unsuitable and irrational tenures of place; and briefly, if it is customary for the most impious heretics to do anything else, (if anyone) through diabolical operation crookedly and cunningly acts contrary to the pious preachings of the orthodox (teachers) of the Catholic Church, that is to say, its paternal and synodal proclamations, to the destruction of the most sincere confession unto the Lord our God, and persists without repentance unto the end impiously doing these things, let such a person be condemned forever,and let all the people say: so be it, so be it[ Ps. 105:48].

There was an elder residing at the Lavra of Calamon on the holy Jordan whose name was Cyriacos. He was a great elder in the sight of God. A brother came to him, a stranger from the land of Dara, named Theophanes, to ask the elder about lewd thoughts. The elder began to encourage him by talking about self-control and purity. Having benefited greatly, the brother said to the elder: ‘Abba, in my country I am in communion with Nestorians, sir; which means I cannot stay with you, even though I would like to.’ When the elder heard the name of Nestorius he became very concerned about the destruction of the brother. He urged and besought him to seperate himself from that noxious heresy and to go to the catholic, apostolic church. He said to him: ‘There is no other way of salvation than rightly to discern and believe that the holy Virgin Mary is in truth the Mother of God.’ The brother said to the elder: ‘But truly, abba, all the sects speak like that sir: that if you are not in communion with us, you are not being saved. I am a simple person and really do not know what to do. Pray to the Lord that by a deed He will show me which is the true faith.’ The elder was delighted to grant the brother this request. He said to him: ‘Stay in my cell and put your trust in God that His goodness will reveal the truth to you’. He left the brother in the cave and went out to the Dead Sea, praying for him. About the ninth hour of the second day, the brother saw a person of awesome appearance standing before him and saying to him: ‘Come and see the truth.’ He took the brother and brought him to a dark and disagreeable place where there was fire — and showed him Nestorius, Theodore, Eutyches, Appollinarius, Evagrios and Didymus, Dioscorus and Severus, Arius and Origen and some others, there in that fire. The apparition said to the brother: ‘This place is prepared for heretics and for those who blaspheme against the Mother of God and for those who follow their teachings. If you find this place to your liking, then stay with the doctrine you now hold. If you have no wish to enter the pains of this chastisement, proceed to the holy catholic church in which the elder teaches. For I tell you that if a man practice every virtue and yet not glorify God correctly, to this place he will come.’ At that saying the brother returned to his senses. When the elder came back, he told him everything that had happened, exactly as he saw it. Then he went and entered into communion with the holy, catholic and apostolic church. He stayed with the elder at Calamon and, having passed several years in his company, he fell asleep in peace. (The Spiritual Meadow, 26.)

If anyone understands the expression “one only Person of our Lord Jesus Christ” in this sense, that it is the union of many hypostases, and if he attempts thus to introduce into the mystery of Christ two hypostases, or two Persons, and, after having introduced two persons, speaks of one Person only out of dignity, honour or worship, as both Theodorus and Nestorius insanely have written; if anyone shall calumniate the holy Council of Chalcedon, pretending that it made use of this expression [one hypostasis] in this impious sense, and if he will not recognize rather that the Word of God is united with the flesh hypostatically, and that therefore there is but one hypostasis or one only Person, and that the holy Council of Chalcedon has professed in this sense the one Person of our Lord Jesus Christ: let him be anathema. For since one of the Holy Trinity has been made man, viz.: God the Word, the Holy Trinity has not been increased by the addition of another person or hypostasis. (The Capitula of the Council V)